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MIDNI&HT HARMONIES, 



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THOUGHTS 



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OCTAVIUS WINSLOW, M.A. 



<* In the night his song shall be with me." 

Psalm zlii. 8. 




NEW YORK 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
No. 285 BROADWAY. 

1856. 



/8<5<L> 



TO 

%\ iistn, 

AS AN EXPRESSION OF TENDER SYMPATHY 

AND 

WITH THE FOND HOPE OF ITS SOOTHING 

IN HEP. SICKNESS AND SOLITUDE, 

THIS VOLUME, 

THE OFFERING OF A BROTHER'S LOVE, 

IS AFFECTIONATELY 

INSCRIBED. 



tfxiibit. 



The following pages owe their origin to one of 
those strange interpositions of Divine Providence, 
by which man is often unexpectedly and solemnly 
turned from his purpose. The Author had com- 
pleted his arrangements for a sea -voyage, when the 
sudden and alarming illness of a beloved relative 
interposed to prevent its accomplishment. A pe- 
riod of much anxiety ensued, during which the idea 
and the themes of this little volume suggested them- 
selves to his mind. Too oppressed to resume the 
composition of a larger work on a graver subject, 
which he had commenced, he found it more soothing 
to allow his thoughts to flow in the simple channel 
which his own feelings naturally dictated. Com- 
posed at intervals between a sick chamber and the 
study, the Author cannot claim for it, nor will the 



VI PEEFACE. 



reader expect that it should possess, the depth of a 
profound, or the grace of a finished composition. 
But such as it is, — a song in the night of his own 
sadness, — he presents it as a tribute of heartfelt 
sympathy to those who may be passing through a 
season of anxiety and trial. 

It is just possible that this little volume may fall 
into the hands of some who may not have met with 
a few works of a kindred character ; copies of which 
the Author would be rejoiced to see laid upon every 
sick pillow, and placed within every house of mourn- 
ing in the land. He particularly refers to Bonar's 
" Night of Weeping," to Dr. Cumming's c; Voices 
of the Night," and to Dr. Hamilton's " Mount of 
Olives." The writer is conscious that he is but fol- 
lowing in the wake of these master " sons of con- 
solation," allured and guided by the radiance which, 
like the stern-lights of a gallant ship, illumines the 
track along which they have coursed. If, however, 
through the blessing of the Eternal Spirit, his little 
vessel should come freighted with the smallest de- 
gree of soothing and hope to a single child of sor- 
row " tossed with tempest and not comforted," it 



PREFACE. VU 

will impart additional sweetness to the dealings of 
his heavenly Father, to whom all glory shall be 
ascribed, even to Him ' : who comforteth us in all 
our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort 
them which are in any trouble, by the comfort 
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 

Leamington, Dec. 1850. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

SONGS IN THE NIGHT, . . . . 11 

JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS, .... 40 

SOLITUDE SWEETENED, . . . . .67 

A LOOK FROM CHRIST, . . . .11 

HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS, . . . .90 

THE GODLT WIDOW CONFIDING IN THE WIDoVs GOD, . 106 

LOOKING UNTO JESUS, . . . . .116 

LEANING UPON THE BELOVED, . . . .136 

THE WEANED CHILD, . . . . .152 

GOD, COMFORTING AS A MOTHER, . . . 173 

JESUS ONLY, . . . . . .189 

THE INCENSE OF PRAYER, . . . .206 

THE DAY BREAKING, . • . . 224 



Inngs in tjjt Jligjt. 

44 God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night." — Job xxxv. 10. 

It will be acknowledged by all, competent 
to form an opinion in the matter, that a holy- 
man is from the very necessity of the case a 
happy man. It is as impossible to separate 
happiness from holiness, as to separate light 
from the sun. The introduction of sin opened 
the door to all wretchedness ; the restoration 
of divine purity closes the door by restoring 
the Divine image ; and the nearer we approx- 
imate to the image of God, the more deeply 
we participate in the happiness of Grod. Sin 
is nothing more than a disturbance of 
the harmony once subsisting between the 
divine and the human will. Restore that 
harmony — let the will of Grod be done on 
earth as it is done in heaven — and earth will 



t 
12 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

again, as it once did, reflect back the puritj 
of heaven, just as the tranquil lake mirrors 
from its bosom the image and the splendor 
of the sun. A saint of God is, then, a happy 
man. He is often most so when others deem 
him most miserable. When they, gazing with 
pity upon his adversities, and his burdens, and 
silently marking the conflict of thought and 
feeling passing within — compared with which 
external trial is but as the bubble floating 
upon the surface — deem him a fit object of 
their commiseration and sympathy, even then, 
there is a hidden spring of joy, an under cur- 
rent of peace lying in the depths of the soul, 
which renders him, chastened and afflicted 
though he is, a happy and an enviable man. 
Worldling! refrain your tears, spare your 
pity. " Blessed are they that mourn now, for 
they are, and they shall be, comforted." 
" Thus saith the Lord Grod : behold, my ser- 
vants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry : be- 
hold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be 
thirsty : behold, my servants shall rejoice, but 
ye shall be ashamed : behold, my servants 



SONGS IX THE NIGHT. 13 

shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for 
sorrow of heart, and shall wail for vexation of 
spirit." "Weep not for him, but, ye Christ- 
less souls ! weep for yourselves ! 

How fully do the words placed at the head 
of this chapter sustain this train of thought. 
Midnight harmony ! Who can inspire it? 
Songs in the night ! Who can create them ? 
(rod can, and God does. The " God of all 
consolation," the " God who comforteth them 
that are cast down," the " God of hope," who 
causes the " bright morning star" to rise upon 
the dreary landscape, the " God of peace, who 
himself gives peace, always, and by all 
means ;" even he, our Maker and our Redeem- 
er, giveth songs in the night. All music is 
of God's inspiration. The lark's cheerful 
carol — the nightingale's plaintive note — an 
infant's praise, and the music of the spheres — 
is the voice of God. There is no instrument 
whose broken and untuned strings he cannot 
make discourse sweet strains — even a heart 
collapsed with grief. And there is no season 
in the Christian historv which he cannot ren- 



14 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

der vocal with a melody to which a seraph 
might breathlessly listen, from which he 
might derive new rapture, but which he 
would imitate in vain. Music, at all times 
sweet, is the sweetest amidst the sublimity 
of night. When in the solemn stillness that 
reigns — not a breath rustling the leaves, 
and echo herself slumbers, — when in the 
darkness that enshrouds, the thoughts that 
agitate, the gloomy phantoms that flit be- 
fore the fancy, like shadows dancing upon the 
wall, there breaks upon the wakeful ear the 
soft notes of skilfully touched instruments, 
blending with the melting tones of well-tuned 
voices, it is as though angels had come down 
to serenade and soothe the sad and jaded sons 
of earth. But there are songs richer, and 
there is music sweeter still than theirs, — the 
songs which God gives, and the music which 
Jesus inspires in the long dark night of the 
Christian's pilgrimage. To this harmony let 
us now hearken. Three reflections are sug- 
gested by the words — The night season, — the 
songs in the night, — and the author of these 



SOXGS IN THE NIGHT. 15 

night-songs. " G-od, my Maker, who giveth 
songs in the night." 

The season referred to by the inspired pen- 
man is figurative of the sorrow, gloom, and 
despondency into which all Grod's people are, 
more or less, brought, — the season of night. 
Designed though this little work is for the 
period of Christian solitude and sorrow, it is 
not improbable that it may find its way into 
the sick and gloomy chamber of a mind yet 
more sick and dark. It may not, then, be 
inappropriate to remark what an expressive 
imao;e is the season of night of an unconverted 
state — a state of spiritual darkness and of 
death. Night is the season of gloom, of 
slumber, of visions. Such is the moral con- 
dition of the soul, unenlightened, unawakened, 
unsanctified by the Holy Grhost. The apos- 
tle touches upon this state, in the contrast 
which he finely draws between the believer 
and the unbeliever. " But ye, brethren, are 
not in darkness, that that day should overtake 
you as a thief. Ye are all the children of 
light, and the children of the day : we are not 



16 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

of the night, nor of darkness, therefore, let us 
not sleep, as do others ; but let us watch and 
be sober ; for they that sleep, sleep in the 
night ; and they that be drunken are drunken 
in the night." What a solemn picture this, 
of an ungodly world, of our unconverted 
relatives ; perhaps, my reader, of thyself. 
" Children of the night" — asleep — in dark- 
ness. Is not the night-season especially the 
season of dreams ? Such is the spiritual 
night of the soul. Thus graphically is it de- 
scribed by the evangelical prophet Isaiah, — 
" As when a hungry man dreameth, and, be- 
hold, he eateth ; but he awaketh, and his soul 
is empty ; or as when a thirsty man dreameth, 
and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, 
and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath 
appetite." Such is your state. You are 
asleep ; the chains of spiritual slumber bind 
your moral senses ; your plans, your pursuits, 
your pleasures, your realizations, all are but 
as the visions that sport around the pillar of 
night. You imagine you are happy, you 
fancy liberty in your fetters, substance in 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 17 

your shadows, reality in your visions. But, 
by and by, you awake to the conviction — 
how keen — that all is but a dream ! The 
spirit is restless, the mind is unfed, the heart 
is sick, the soul is unsatisfied ; all, all is one 
dark and desolate blank. Yes, God will 
write, yea, God has written, the sentence of 
death upon the worldling's enjoyment ; and 
will teach him that all happiness is ideal, and 
all pleasure is unsubstantial that flows not 
from himself, and of which he is not the " ex- 
ceeding joy." Rouse you, then, from your 
sleep ; the bridegroom is coming ! the mid- 
night cry of the approaching judge is about to 
break upon the slumber and darkness of your 
soul. It is high time to awake out of sleep. 
"What, if the words should startle you amidst 
your worldliness and folly, your sin and re- 
bellion, your day-dreams of earthly good, — 
" Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be re- 
quired of thee !" "What, if you should awake 
up in hell ! Horror of horrors ! Listen to 
the warning of the Saviour, " What shall it 
profit a man, if he should gain the whole 
2* 



18 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

world, and lose his own soul." Then, " awake 
thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, 
and Christ shall give thee life." Awful, if 
the present night of your unsanctified sorrow 
should be the harbinger, the prelude, the fore- 
casting shadows of a future and an endless 
night of woe ! 

But this season of night is signally de- 
scriptive of some periods in the history and 
experience of a child of God, and to them we 
especially restrict it. It reminds us of the 
period of soul darkness which oftentimes over- 
takes the Christian pilgrim. " My servant 
that walketh in darkness and hath no light," 
says God. Observe, he is still God's servant. 
He is the " child of the light," though walk- 
ing in darkness. Gloom spreads its mantle 
around him — a darkness that may be felt. 
Shadows thicken upon his path. God's way 
with him is in the great deep : " Thou art a 
God that hidest thyself," is his mournful 
prayer. The Holy Spirit is, perhaps, grieved 
— no visits from Jesus make glad his heart — 
he is brought in some small degree into the 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 19 

blessed Saviour's experience : " My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" But, sor- 
rowful pilgrim, there is a bright light in this, 
your cloud — turn your eye towards it — the 
darkness through which you are walking is 
not judicial. It is not the darkness of an 
unconverted, alienated state. no ! you are 
still a " child of the day," though it may be 
temporary night with your spirit. It is the 
withdrawment but for " a little moment," 
— not the utter and eternal extinction, — of 
the Sun of Righteousness from your soul. 
You are still a child, and God is still a 
Father. " In a little wrath I hid my face 
from thee for a moment : but with everlasting 
kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the 
Lord thy Redeemer." " Is Ephraim my dear 
son ? is he a pleasant child ? for since I spake 
against him I do earnestly remember him 
still" 

And what are seasons of affliction but as 
the night-time of the Christian ? The night 
of adversity is often dark, long, and tempestu- 
ous. The Lord frequently throws the pall of 



20 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

gloom over the sunniest prospect, touching his 
loved child where that touch is the keenest 
felt. He knows the heart's idol : he is best 
acquainted with the fowler's snare — the temp- 
tation and the peril lying in our path. He 
knows better far than we the chain that 
rivets us to some endangering object ; he 
comes and draws the curtain of night's sorrow 
around our way. He sends messenger after 
messenger. Deep calleth unto deep. He 
touches us in our family — in our property — 
in our reputation — in our persons. And 0, 
what a night of woe now spreads its drapery 
of gloom around us ! Then it is — amidst the 
deepening shades — we seem to take a more 
dismal view of every object. All things loom 
in the mist. Our position, our circumstances, 
our losses, our prospects, all present a more 
gloomy and discouraging aspect, and assume 
a more exaggerated and magnified form, 
viewed in the sombre hues now gathering 
and darkening around them. It is a " day 
of darkness and of gloominess, a day of 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 21 

clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning 
spread upon the mountains." 

Such, too, is the season of mournful be- 
reavement. "What a night is that when the 
shadow of death falls upon our once bright 
and joyous tabernacle ; when the destroyer 
enters and lays low some loved object, around 
which the heart's affections, perhaps, too 
closely entwined. It is as though the noon- 
day sun had suddenly become quenched in 
midnight gloom. " Lover and friend hast 
thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance 
into darkness," is the heart's sad breathing. 
It was such a night to the heart of Jesus 
when he left the house of Bethany to go to 
the grave of Lazarus. Ah! who has not 
passed through the gloom and the pangs of 
this season ? Who has not seen the shadows 
approaching which forewarned of the coming 
woe ? To take our position in the room of 
suffering, and to watch through the weari- 
some day and the lonesome night, the slow 
advance of the fell-destroyer, — to see tha 
light retiring from our ' pleasant picture,' and 



22 SONGS IN THE NIGH3 

its features of expression and its lines of 
beauty growing dimmer and fainter, until the 
shadow of death completely veiled it from 
our view — what a night of heart-ache is 
this ! But hush ! 

" All are not taken 1 there are left behind 
Living beloveds, tender looks to bring, 
And make the daylight still a blessed thing, 
And tender voices, to make soft the wind. 
But if it were not so — if I could find 
Not love in all the world to answer me, 
Nor any pathway but rang hollowly, 
Where ' dust to dust' the love from life disjoined — 
And if with parched lips, — as in a dearth 
Of water-springs the very deserts claim, — 
I uttered to these sepulchres unmoving 
The bitter cry, ' Where are ye, my loving V 
I know a voice would sound, ' Daughter, I am, 
Can I suffice for heaven, and not for earth V " 

But dark, and often rayless for a time, as 
are these various night-seasons of our pil- 
grimage, they have their harmonies. It is 
not perfect night, as it is not perfect day 
with us here. If the day has its dark 
periods, the night has its bright ones. If the 
one has its sounds of woe, the other has its 
notes of melody. There are — provided by 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 2S 

him who "divides the light from the dark- 
ness" — softenings, alleviations, and soothings, 
which can even turn night into day, and 
bring the softest tones from the harshest dis- 
cord. How humbling is the reflection, that 
in the depth of the deepest sorrow, the dark- 
ness of the darkest shade, we should lose 
sight of this precious truth. The strong con- 
solations which our God has laid up for them 
that love him, are so divine, so rich, so varied, 
that to overlook the provision in the time of 
our sorrow, seems an act of ingratitude 
darker even than the sorrow we deplore. ! 
it is in the heart of God to comfort you, his 
suffering child. Once convinced of this, and 
the bitterest ingredient in your cup has be- 
come sweet. Let me assist you to the con- 
viction of this truth by directing your atten- 
tion, perhaps in an hour of dark woe, to some 
of those " songs" which the Lord enables his 
people to sing in the night-watches of their 
journey. 

This was pre-eminently David's experience. 
Few of the Lord's saints knew more of the 



24 feONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

night-travel of faith, than this wonderful man 
of Grod. Happy shall we be if we study- 
closely his instructive life. After alluding to 
the " waves and the billows which had gone 
over him," he seems to be suddenly checked 
in his complainings by the recollection of the 
night-song : " Yet the Lord will command his 
loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the 
night his song shall be with me, and my 
prayer unto the Grod of my life," (Psalm xlii. 
8.) Here was midnight harmony! Amidst 
the " noise of the water-spouts," and the 
swellings of "billows" — the midnight of his 
soul — lo ! music rises ! A song is sung, such 
as is not heard in heaven — for there is no 
night there — it is of kindness, it is of love, 
yea, it is of loving-kindness, manifested and 
experienced in the hour, when sinking amidst 
deep and dark waters the soul cries out for 
fear, "Lord, save, I perish!" what loving, 
kindness must that be, suffering believer, 
which inspires" a song so sweet, amidst a sea- 
son so dark as this ! 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT, 25 

" Awake, my soul, in joyful lays, 
And sing thy dear Redeemer's praise ; 
He justly claims a song from me, 
His loving-kindness, how free I 

" When trouble, like a gloomy cloud, 
Has gathered thick and thundered loud ; 
He near my soul has always stood, 
His loving-kindness, how good !" 

The Psalmist, too, on another occasion of 
night-travel fed his drooping faith with the 
remembrance of songs he had previously 
sung : " I call to remembrance my song ift, 
the night" (Psalm lxxvii. 6.) It is no small 
wisdom, tried Christian, to recall to memory 
the music of the past. Think not that, like 
sounds of earth-born melody, that music has 
died away never to awake again. Ah, no ! 
those strains which once floated from your 
spirit-touched lips, yet live ! The music of 
a holy heart never dies ; it lingers still amid 
the secret chambers of the soul. Hushed it 
may be for awhile, by other and discordant 
sounds, but the Holy Spirit, the Christian's 
Divine Remembrancer, will summon back 
those tones again, to soothe and tranquillize 



26 SOXGS IN THE NIGHT. 

and cheer, perhaps in a darker hour and in 
richer strains, some succeeding night of heart- 
grief. "J remember thee upon my bed, and 
meditate on thee in the night-watches." 
11 Restore unto me the joys of thy salvation." 
Yet again : " At midnight I will arise to 
give thanks unto thee because of thy right- 
eous judgments," (Ps. cxix. 62.) At mid- 
night — the most lonely, rayless, desolate hour. 
1 When other hearts of sympathy are hushed 
to rest ; when all the world seems dead to me, 
wrapt in profound unconsciousness of my 
silent vigils, in the midnight of my soul's 
deep grief I will arise from my pillow, moist 
with tears, and from my couch, worn with 
my tossings, and will give thanks unto thee 
because of thy righteous judgments.' 
what midnight harmony, beloved, is this! 
The blessed spirits of another world are 
hearkening: God bows down his ear and 
listens. Ah ! my reader, there is not a single 
midnight of your history — never so dark as 
that midnight may be — for which Grod has 
not provided you a song, and in which there 



SONGS IX THE NIGHT. 27 

may not be such music as human hand nevet 
awoke, and as human lip never breathed — 
the music that God only can create. But 
what are some of the materials — the chords 
and notes — of these songs in the night? 
Begin we with the key-note. 

Jesus himself is our song. If we cannot 
sing of Jesus and of his love in the night of 
our pilgrimage, of what, of whom, then, can 
we sing ? As all music has its ground-work 
— its elementary principles — so has the music 
of the believing soul. Jesus is the basis. 
He who knows nothing experimentally of 
Jesus, has never learned to sing the Lord's 
song. But the believer, when he contemplates 
Jesus in his personal dignity, glory, and beauty 
— when he regards him as God's equal — 
when he views him as the Father's gift — as 
the great depo c .tary of all the fulness of 
God, can sing in the dark night of his con- 
scious sinfulness, of a foundation upon which 
he may securely build for eternity. And 
when, too, he studies the work of Jesus, what 
material for a song is gathered here ! when he 



28 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

contemplates Christ as "made of God unto 
him wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and 
redemption ;" when he views the atoning 
blood and righteousness which presents him 
moment by moment before God, washed from 
every stain, and justified from every sin, even 
now, in the night-season of his soul's deep 
depravity, he can sing the first notes of the 
song they chaunt in higher strains above : 
u Unto him that loved us, and washed us 
from our sins in his own blood, and hath 
made us kings and priests unto God and his 
Father ; to him be glory and dominion, for- 
ever and ever. Amen." ! yes, Jesus is the 
key-note — Jesus is the ground- work of our 
midnight harmony. 

Is it a season of heart-ploughing, of break- 
ing up of the fallow ground, of deeper dis- 
covery of the concealed p. ague? Still to 
turn the eye of faith on Je-us, and con- 
template the efficacy of his blood to remove 
all sin, and the power of his grace to subdue 
all iniquity, what music in the sad heart 
does that sight of him create! " My sou] 



songs in the night. 29 

doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath 
rejoiced in God my Saviour." 

Is it a night of sorrowful affliction ? What 
a friend, what a brother, what a helper is 
Jesus ! Never, no never, does he leave his 
suffering one to travel that night unvisited, 
unsoothed by his presence. He is with you 
now, and of his faithfulness that never falters, 
of his love that never changes, of his tender- 
ness that never lessens, of his patience that 
never wearies, of his grace that never decays, 
of his watchfulness that never slumbers, you 
may sing in the storm-night of your grief. 
Fix your eye, dim with weeping though it be, 
upon this touching picture of your sympa- 
thizing Lord thus presented to your view : 
" The ship was now in the midst of the sea, 
tossed with waves : for the wind was contrary. 
And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus 
went unto them, walking on the sea. And 
when the disciples saw him walking on the 
sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit ; 
and they cried out for fear. But straightway 
Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of goa„ 

3* 



30 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

cheer; it is I; be not afraid." Think you 
there were no songs on that dark tempestuous 
night? Did no music rise from that storm- 
tossed vessel, and swell above the moaning of 
the sea ? Ah, yes, beloved ! Jesus was there ! 
And Jesus gave the key-note: "It is I ; be 
not afraid!" And then rose the music of 
faith and love from the lips of his transported 
apostle: "Lord, if it.be thou, bid me come 
unto thee, on the water." Trembling be- 
liever ! Jesus had been all that night in 
earnest, wrestling prayer for those loved dis- 
ciples ; and when their peril and fear were at 
their height, he hastened to their rescue and 
their comfort, treading the limpid wave with 
all the majesty and the firmness of a (rod. Jesus 
loves to visit us in our night-watches. Jesus 
is praying for us when in the storm. The 
incarnate Grod delights to be near his helpless 
and timid saints: and he is near — yes, near 
to you — the strength of your fainting heart, 
the support of your sinking soul; and you 
"shall have a song as in the night, when a 
holy solemnity is kept; and gladness' of heart, 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 31 



as when one goeth with a pipe to come into 
the mountain of the Lord, to the mighty one 
of Israel." 

Is it the night of bereavement? Ah, heavy 
as that night is, there is a song even for it, 
smitten, weeping soul. Jesus was bereaved. 
Can you not sing of this? " Jesus wept." 
Is there no melody in these words ? yes ! 
As one, who himself knew and felt the blank 
which death creates in human friendship: as 
one, whose tears once fell upon the cold clay, 
while no hand was outstretched to wipe them, 
he sympathizes with your present sorrow, and 
is prepared to make it all his own. Wide as 
is the chasm, deep as is the void, mournful as 
is the blank which death has created, Christ 
can fill it ; and filling it with his love, with 
his presence, with himself, how sweet will be 
your song in the night of your sorrow, — " He 
hath done all things well." there is not a 
single hour of the long night of our woe, but 
if we turn and rest in Jesus, we shall rind 
material for a hymn of praise, such as seraphs 
cannot sing. 



32 SOXGS IN THE NIGHT. 

Nor must we pass by David's sweet song in 
the dark night of his domestic calamity and 
grief: "Although my house be not so with 
God ; yet he hath made with me an everlasting ' 
covenant, ordered in all things, and sure : for 
this is all my salvation, and all my desire, 
although he maketh it not to grow," (2 Sam. 
xxiii. 5.) The everlasting covenant which 
God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus 
with all his beloved people, individually, is a 
strong ground of consolation amidst the trem- 
blings of human hope, the fluctuations of 
creature things, and the instability of all that 
earth calls good. The Word of God meets 
the peculiar sorrow of domestic calamity with 
especial tenderness. David was tried in his 
children — how deep that trial was, few of us 
may know. But the covenant was enough 
for it ; it was a covenant ordered in all things, 
and sure : and this was his song in the night. 

And of this same covenant, sorrowful 
child of the covenant, you too may sing : 
The God of the covenant is your God, your 
Father, your unchangeable Friend. What 



-OXGS IN THE NIGHT. 33 



though domestic calamity enshrouds youi 
spirit as with midnight gloom — the covenant 
in which your name is written, and your sor- 
row appointed, and your consolation provided, 
and your steps ordered, sheds its mild lustre 
upon your way, and bids you sing in the night- 
time of your erief, — 

" Since thou, the everlasting God, 
My Father art become ; 
Jesus, my guardian and my friend, 
And heaven my final home : 

" I welcome all thy sovereign will ; 
For all that will is love : 
And, when I know not what thou dost, 
I wait the light above. 

u Thy covenant in the darkest gloom 
Shall heavenly rays impart, 
Which, when my eyelids close in death, 
Shall warm my chilling heart."' 

And who gives these songs in the night ? 
" G-od our Maker." AVho but Grod could give 
them ? No saint on earth, no angel in heaven, 
has power to tune our hearts to a single note 
of praise in the hour of their grief. No, nor 
could anv creature above or below breathe a 



34 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

word of comfort, of hope, or of succor, when 
heart and flesh were failing. Who but the 
incarnate God has power enough, or love 
enough, or sympathy enough to come and 
embosom himself in our very circumstances — 
to enter into the very heart of our sorrow — to 
go down into the deepest depth of our woe, 
and strike a chord there that, responding to 
his touch, shall send forth a more than angel's 
music ? It is God who gives these songs. 
He is acquainted with your sorrows : he 
regards your night of weeping : he knows the 
way that you take. He may be lost to your 
view, but you cannot be lost to his. The 
darkness of your night-grief may veil him 
from your eye, but the u darkness and the 
light are both alike to him." Then repair to 
him for your song. Ask him so to sanctify 
your sorrow by his grace, and so to comfort it 
by his Spirit, and so to glorify himself in 
your patient endurance of it, and so to make 
you to know the wherefore of your trial, and 
your trial so to answer the mission on which 
it was sent, as will enable you to raise this 



SONGS IX THE XIGHT. 35 

note of praise : " Thou hast turned for me my 
mourning into dancing ; thou hast put off my 
sackcloth, and girded me with gladness ; to 
the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, 
and not be silent." 

In giving you a throne of grace, God has 
given you a song, methinks one of the sweetest 
ever sung in the house of our pilgrimage. 
To feel that we have a Grod who hears and 
answers prayer,— who has done so in count- 
less instances, and is prepared still to give us 
at all times an audience — ! the unutterable 
blessedness of this truth. Sing aloud then, 
ye sorrowful saints, for great and precious is 
your privilege of communion with Grod. In 
the night of your every grief and trial and 
difficulty, forget not that, in your lowest 
frame, you may sing this song, — " Having 
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood 
of Jesus, by a new and living way, I will 
draw near, and pour out my heart to Grod." 
Chaunt, then, his high praises as you pass 
along, that there is a place where you may 
disclose ev^ry want, repose every sorrow, de- 



36 SOXGS IK THE NIGHT. 

posit every burden, breathe every sigh, and 
lose yourself in communion with God — that 
place is the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, of 
which God says, " There will I meet with 
thee, and I will commune with thee." 

Ah ! but perhaps you exclaim, " Would 
that I could sing ! I can weep, and moan, 
and even trust, but I cannot rejoice." Yes, 
but there is One who can give even you, 
beloved, a song in the night. Place your 
harp in his hands, all broken and unstrung as 
it is, and he will repair and retune it ; and 
then, breathing upon it his Spirit, and touch- 
ing it with his own gentle hand, that heart 
that was so sad and joyless shall yet sing the 
high praises of its Grod. How much of Grod's 
greatness and glory in nature is concealed 
until the night reveals it ! The sun is with- 
drawn, twilight disappears, and darkness robes 
the earth. Then appears the brilliant firma- 
ment, studded and glowing with myriads of 
constellations. the indescribable wonder, 
the surpassing glory, of that scene ! But it 
was the darkness that brought it all to view. 



BONGS IN THE XIGHT. 37 

Thus it is in the Christian's life. How much 
of G-od would be unseen, how much of his 
glory concealed, how little should we know of 
Jesus, but for the night-season of mental 
darkness and of heart sorrow. The sun that 
shone so cheeringly has set : the gray twilight 
that looked so pensively has disappeared ; and 
just as the night of woe set in, filling you 
with trembling, with anxiety, and with fear, 
lo ! a scene of overpowering grandeur sud- 
denly bursts upon the astonished eye of your 
faith. The glory of (rod as your Father, has 
appeared — the character of Jesus as a loving 
tender brother, has unfolded — the Spirit as a 
Comforter, has whispered — your interest in 
the great redemption has been revealed — and 
a new earth redolent with a thousand sweets, 
and a new heaven resplendent with countless 
suns, has floated before your view. It was 
the darkness of your night of sorrow that 
made visible all this wonder and all this glory: 
and but for that sorrow how little would you 
have known of it. "I will sing of mercy and 
of judgment : unto thee, Lord, will T sing." 
4 



38 SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 

Suffering, sorrowful believer ! pluck your 
harp from yon willow, and with the hand of 
faith and love sweep it to the high praises of 
your Grod. Praise him for himelf — praise 
him for Jesus — praise him for conversion — 
praise him for joys — praise him for sorrows — 
praise him for chastenings — praise him for 
the hope of glory — praise him for all ! 
Thus singing the Lord's song in a strange 
land, you will be learning to sing it in divine 
sounds, such as are — 

" Sung before the sapphire-colored throne 
To him that sits thereon — 
"With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee, 
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row, 
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow, 
And the cherubic host in thousand quires 
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, 
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, 
Hymns devout, and holy psalms 
Singing everlastingly ; 
That we on earth with undiscording voice 
May rightly answer with melodious noise ; 
As once we did, till disproportion ed sin 
Jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din 
Broke the fair music that all creatures made 
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed 
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood 
In first obedience, and their state of good. 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 39 



may we soon again renew that song, 

And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long 

To his celestial concert us unite, 

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light." 



Sisus tailing {[is Dealings. 



u Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not 
now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." — John xiii. 7. 



Our Lord, when he spake these words, had 
just risen from the lowliest act of his most 
lowly life. Around that act there was thrown 
a veil of mystery which partially concealed 
its purport and its end from the view 7 of his 
wondering disciple. There was much in this 
simple but expressive incident of the Saviour's 
life which filled his mind with perplexing 
thought. His first feeling was that of resist- 
ance, to be succeeded by one of astonishment, 
still deeper. He had marked each step in the 
strange proceeding — the loosened sandal, the 
bathing of the feet, the replacing of the robe ; 
but the deep significance of the whole was to 
his view wrapped in impenetrable mystery. 
And how did the Saviour meet his perplexity ? 



JESUS VEILIXG HIS DEALINGS. 41 

Not by denying its mysteriousness, but by a 
promise of clearer light anon. " Jesus an- 
swered and said unto him, What I do thou 
knowest not now ; but thou shalt know here- 
after." And this explanation and assurance 
satisfied the mind of the amazed disciple. 
" Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my 
feet only, but also my hands and my head." 

Each individual believer has a personal in- 
terest in this subject, especially those to whom 
these pages are inscribed, — the Father's chas- 
tened ones. These words imply a concealment 
of much of the Lord's procedure with his 
people. In the preceding chapter we con- 
templated, under the similitude of the night- 
season, the present pilgrimage of the saints ; 
a night, however, not entirely rayless, nor 
songless ; not without some harbingers of the 
joyous morning, nor some key-notes of the 
entrancing melody with which that morning 
of joy will be ushered in. It is our wisdom 
to know that no pure, unmixed sorrow, ever 
befalls the Christian sufferer. Our Lord 
Jesus flung the curse and the sin to such an 
4* 



£2 JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 

infinite distance from the church, that could 
his faith but discern it, the believer would 
see nothing but love painting the darkest 
cloud that ever threw its shadow upon his 
spirit. Akin to the preceding subject is the 
one upon which we now propose briefly to 
address the suffering reader. It speaks of a 
veiling of Christ's dealings, with the promise 
of an unveiling in a day far sunnier and hap- 
pier than this. " What I do thou knowest 
not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." 

With regard to our heavenly Father, there 
can be nothing mysterious, nothing inscruta- 
ble to him. A profound and awful mystery 
himself, yet to his infinite mind there can be 
no darkness, no mystery at all. His whole 
plan — if plan it may be called — is before him. 
Our phraseology, when speaking of the divine 
procedure, would sometimes imply the oppo- 
site of this. We talk of God's fore-knowl- 
edge, of his foresight, of his acquaintance 
with events yet unborn ; but there is in truth 
no such thing. There are no tenses with 
Grod — no past — nor present — nor to come. 



JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 43 

The idea of Grod's Eternity, if perfectly 
grasped, would annihilate in our minds all 
such humanizing of the Divine Being. He 
is one — Eternal Now. All events to the 
remotest period of time, were as vivid and as 
present to the divine mind from eternity, as 
when at the moment they assumed a real ex- 
istence and a palpable form. 

But all the mystery is with us, poor finite 
creatures of a day. And why, even to us, is 
any portion of the divine conduct thus a 
mystery ? Not because it is in itself so, but 
mainly and simply because we cannot see the 
whole as Grod sees it. Could it pass before 
our eye, as from eternity it has before his, a 
perfect and a complete whole, we should then 
cease to wonder, to cavil and repine. The in- 
finite wisdom, purity, and goodness, that 
originated and gave a character, a form, and 
a coloring, to all that (rod does, would appear 
as luminous to our view as to his, and cease- 
less adoration and praise would be the grate- 
ful tribute of our loving hearts. 

Throw back a glance upon the past, and 



44 JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 

see how little you have ever understood of all 
the way Grod has led you. What a mystery 
— perhaps, now better explained — has en- 
veloped his whole proceedings ! When Jo- 
seph, for example, was torn from the home- 
stead of his father, sold, and borne a slave 
into Egypt, not a syllable of that eventful 
page of his history could he spell. All was 
to his mind as strange and unreadable as the 
hieroglyphics of the race, whose symbolical 
literature and religion now for the first time 
met his eye. And yet (rod's way with this 
his servant was perfect. And could Joseph 
have seen at the moment that he descended 
into the pit, whither he was cast by his en- 
vious brethren, all the future of his history 
as vividly and as palpably as he beheld it in 
after years, while there would have been the 
conviction that all was well, we doubt not 
that faith would have lost much of its vigour, 
and Grod much of his glory. And so with 
good old Jacob. The famine, — the parting 
with Benjamin, — the menacing conduct of 
Pharaoh's prime minister, wrung the mourn- 



JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 45 

fill expression from his lips, " All these things 
are against me." All was veiled in deep and 
mournful mystery. Thus was it with Job, to 
whom God spake from the whirlwind that 
swept every vestige of affluence and domestic 
comfort from his dwelling. And thus, too, 
with Naomi, when she exclaimed. "Call me 
not Naomi, call me Mara : for the Almighty 
hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out 
full, and the Lord hath brought me home 
again empty.*' How easy were it to multiply 
these examples of veiled and yet all-wise dis- 
pensation. 

And is this the way of the Lord with you, 
my reader ? Are you bewildered at the 
mazes through which you are threading your 
steps ; at the involved circumstances of your 
present history ; the incidents which seem so 
netted and interlaced one with the other as to 
present to your view an inextricable labyrinth ? 
Deem yourself not alone in this. No mystery 
has lighted upon your path but what is com- 
mon to the one family of God : ' ; This honor 
have all his saints." The Shepherd is leading 



46 JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS, 

you, as all the flock are led, with a skilful 
hand and in a right way. It is yours to 
stand if he bids you, or to follow if he leads. 
" He giveth no account of any of his matters," 
assuming that his children have such confi- 
dence in his wisdom, and love, and upright- 
ness, as, in all the wonder-working of his 
dealings with them, to ' be still and know that 
he is God.' That it is to the honor ©f God 
to conceal, should in our view justify all his 
painful and humiliating procedure with us. 
" It is the glory of God to conceal a thing," 
as it will be for his endless glory by and bye 
fully to reveal it all. But there is one thing, 
Christian sufferer, which he cannot conceal. 
He cannot conceal the love that forms the 
spring and foundation of all his conduct with 
his saints. Do what he will, conceal as he 
may; be his chariot the thick clouds, and his 
w T ay in the deep sea ; still his love betrays 
itself, disguised though it may be in dark and 
impenetrable providence. There are under 
tones, gentle and tender, in the roughest ac- 
cents of our Joseph's voice. And he who has 



JESTS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 47 

an ear ever hearkening to the Lord, and deli- 
cately attuned to the gentlest whisper, shall 
often exclaim, — ;i Speak, Lord, how and when 
and where thou mayest — it is the voice of 
my beloved !" 

But we have arrived at an interesting and 
cheering truth — the full unveiling of all the 
Lord's dealings in a holier and a brighter 
world. "What I do, thou knowest not now; 
but thou shalt know hereafter" That there 
is a present partial understanding of God's 
will and ways concerning us, we readily con- 
cede. AVe may, now and then, see a needs be 
for his conduct. The veil is just sufficiently 
lifted to reveal a portion of the 'end of the 
Lord.' He will make us acquainted with 
the evil which he corrects, with the back- 
sliding which he chastens, with the tempta- 
tion which he checks, and with the danger- 
ous path around which he throws his hedge ; 
so that we cannot escape. We see it, and we 
bless the hand outstretched to save. He will 
also 'cause us to be fruitful. Y\ r e have 
mourned our leanness, have confessed our 



48 JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 

barrenness, and lamented the distance of our 
walk, and the little glory we bring to his dear 
name, — and lo ! the dresser of the vineyard 
has appeared to prune his sickly branch, "that 
it may bring forth more fruit." " By this 
therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged ; 
and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." 
The deeper teaching, too, — the result of the 
divine chastenings, — has revealed to some ex- 
tent the i end of the Lord' in his mysterious 
conduct. there is no school like (rod's 
school; for "who teacheth like him?" And 
G-od's highest school is the school of trial. 
All his true scholars have graduated from 
this: "Who are these which are arrayed in 
white robes ? and whence came they ? These 
are they which came out of great tribulation, 
and have washed their robes, and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb." "Blessed 
is the man, Lord, whom thou chasteneth 
and teacheth him out of thy law." Ask each 
spiritually, deeply-taught Christian where he 
attained his knowledge — and he will poirk; you 
to God's great university — the school of trial 



JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 49 

But there is a time coming, a blessed time 
of " good things to come," when the darkness 
will all have passed away, the mystery of 
God will be finished, and the present conduct 
of our Saviour will be fully cleared up. 
" What I do, thou knowest not now ; but thou 
shalt knoiv hereafter." that " hereafter," 
what a solemn word to the ungodly ! Is there, 
then, a hereafter ? Jesus says there is ; and 
I believe it, because he says it. That here- 
after will be terrible to the man that dies in 
his sins. It will be a hereafter, whose history 
will be " written in mourning, lamentation 
and woe." It had been better for thee, reader, 
living and dying, impenitent and unbelieving, 
hadst thou never been born, or, had there been 
no hereafter. But there is a hereafter of woe 
to the sinner, as of bliss to the saint. " These 
shall go away into everlasting punishment : 
but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt, 
xxv. 46.) 

The position which the Christian shall 
occupy hereafter, will be most favorable to 
a full and clear comprehension of all the 
5 



50 JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 

mysteries of the way. The " clouds and 
darkness" — emblems in our history of ob- 
scurity and distress — which now envelop 
God's throne, and enshroud his government 
of the saints, will have passed away ; the 
mist and fog will have vanished, and breath- 
ing a purer atmosphere, and canopied by a 
brighter sky, the glorified saint will see every 
object, circumstance, incident and step, with 
an eye unobscured by a vapor, and un- 
moistened by a tear. "Now we know in 
part, then shall we know even as we are 
known." And what shall we know ? All 
the mysteries of Providence. Things which 
had made us greatly grieve, will now be seen 
to have been causes of the greatest joy. 
Clouds of threatening, which appeared to us 
charged with the agent of destruction, will 
then unveil, and reveal the love which they 
embosomed and concealed. All the mysteries 
of faith too will be known. " Now we see 
trough a glass, darkly ; (in a riddle) but then 
;e to face ; now I know in part ; but then 
all I know even as also I am known." 



JESUS VEILING- HIS DEALINGS. 51 

The great " mystery of Grodliness" will de- 
velop and unfold its wonders. His everlasting 
love to his church — his choice of a people for 
himself — his sovereign grace in calling them, 
all, all, will shine forth with unclouded lustre 
to the eternal praise of his great and holy 
name. what a perfect, harmonious, and 
glorious whole will all his doings in providence 
and grace appear, from first to last, to the 
undimmed eye, the ravished gaze of his 
white-robed, palm-bearing church. 

Many and holy are the lessons we may 
gather from this subject. The first is — the 
lesson of deep humility. There are three 
steps in the Christian's life. The first is — 
humility ; the second is — humility ; the third 
is — humility. " Thou shalt remember all the 
way which the Lord thy God led thee these 
forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, 
and to prove thee, to know what was in thine 
heart." In veiling his dealings, Jesus would 
"hide pride" from us. How loftily and self- 
sufriciently should we walk did we see all 
our present and future history plain before us 



52 JESUS VEILING- HIS DEALINGS. 

"We should ascribe to our own wisdom and 
skill, prudence and forethought, the honor 
which belongs to Christ alone. Let us, then, 
lie low before the Lord, and humble ourselves 
under his mysterious hand. " The meek will 
he guide in judgment, and the meek will he 
teach his way. All the paths of the Lord 
are mercy and truth unto such as keep his 
covenant and his testimonies." Thus writing 
the sentence of death upon our wisdom, our 
sagacity, and our strength, Jesus — the lowly 
one — seeks to keep us from the loftiness of 
our intellect, and from the pride of our heart 
prostrating us low in the dust at his feet. 
Holy posture ! blessed place ! There, Lord, 
would I lie ; my trickling tears of penitence 
and love, falling upon those dear feet that 
have never misled, but have always gone 
before, leading me by a right way, the best 
way, to a city of rest. 

" To cure thee of thy pride — that deepest-seated ill, 
God humbled his own self — wilt thou thy pride keep 

still?" 

"We should learn from this subject to live 
5* 



JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 53 

by faith amidst the enshrouding dealings of 
our Grod. Therefore are those dealings often 
so dark. 'Could we ever see all the road, faith 
would have no play ; this precious, this Christ- 
honoring, this €rod-glorifying grace would lie 
dormant in the soul. But, in " leading the 
blind by a way that they know not," he 
teaches them to confide in the knowledge, 
truth, and goodness of their Divine escort— 
and that confidence is the calm unquestioning 
repose of faith. 

" My spirit on thy care, 

Blest Saviour, I recline ; 
Thou wilt not leave me to despair, 
For thou art love divine. 

" In thee I place my trust, 
On thee I calmly rest ; 
I know thee good, I know thee just, 
And count thy choice the best. 

" Whate'er events betide, 

Thy will they all perform ; 
Safe in thy breast my head I hide, 
Nor fear the coming storm. 

" Let good or ill befall, 

It must be good for me ; 

5* 



54 JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 

Secure of having thee in all, 
Of having all in thee."* 

Oh, sweet, consoling words of Jesus !— • 
" What I do." Not what men do — not what 
angels do — not what thou doe»t, — but, " what 
I do." Is the loved one wrenched from your 
heart? — "I have done 'it," says Jesus. Is 
the desire of thine eyes smitten down with a 
stroke ? — " I have done it," says Jesus. Is it 
the loss of property, of health, of position, of 
friends, that overwhelms you with grief? — "I 
have done it," says Jesus. " What J do thou 
knowest not now ; but thou shalt know here- 
after." How many a mother has this promise 
soothed, while with an anguish such as a 
mother only knows, she has gazed upon the 
withered flower on her breast ! How many a 
father, standing by the couch of death, grasp- 
ing the cold clammy hand of the pride of his 
heart, has felt the power of these words, more 
sweet and more soothing than an angel's mu- 
sic — " What I do thou knowest not now ; but 
thou shalt know hereafter." Wait, then, suf- 
* Rev. H. F. Lyte. 



JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 55 

fering child, the coming glory — yielding your- 
self to the guidance of your Saviour, and 
submitting yourself wholly to your Father's 

will. 

" O Lord ! how happy should we be, 
If we could cast our care on thee, 

If we from self could rest ; 
And feel at heart that One above, 
In perfect wisdom, perfect love. 

Is working for the best. 

"How far from this our daily life! 
Ever disturbed by anxious strife, 

By sudden wild alarms ; 
O could we but relinquish all 
Our earthly props, and simply fall 
On thy Almighty arms ! 

<; Could we but kneel, and cast our load, 
E'en while we pray, upon our God ; 

Then rise with lightened cheer, 
Sure that the Father who is nigh 
To still the famished raven's cry 

Will hear, in that we fear. 

" We cannot trust him as we should, 
So chafes fallen nature's restless mood 

To cast its peace away ; 
Yet birds and rlow'rets round us preach, 
All, all the present evil teach 

Sufficient for the day. 



• 



56 JESUS VEILING HIS DEALINGS. 



" Lord, make these faithless hearts of ours, 
Such lessons learn from birds and flowers, 

Make them from self to cease ; 
Leave all things to a Father's will, 
And taste, before him lying still, 
E'en in affliction, peace." 

" What I do, thou knowest not nq x v ; Bin 



44 1 am not alone, because the Father is with me." — John xvi. 32. 

It was not one of the least mournful fea- 
tures in the Saviour's humiliation that the 
path he trod was in a measure solitary, and 
that the sorrow he endured was in its charac- 
ter a lonely one. He had created and had 
peopled the world — he had given to man a 
social constitution, had inspired the pulsation 
of love, and had imparted to his creatures a 
secret and strong affinity of mind to mind ; 
and yet he was in the world as one to whom 
it afforded no home, and proffered no friend- 
ship. And was this no felt-trial to the Son 
of God ? Did it enter nothing into the curse 
which he came to endure ? Did it add no 
gall-bitter to his cup, no keenness to the sad- 
ness of his heart, no deepening to the shade 



58 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 

upon his brow ? Did the absence of a per- 
fectly congenial mind, assimilating spirit, 
fond, confiding, sympathizing heart, on whose 
pillow he could lay to rest the corroding cares 
and mental disquietudes which agitated his 
own, create no aching void in the Redeemer's 
bosom? Surely it must. Our Lord was 
human — though divine — and as man he must 
have felt, at times, an intensity of yearning 
for human companionship proportioned to his 
capacity to enjoy, and his power to enrich it. 
The human sympathies and affections that 
belonged to him, pure and elevated as they 
were, could only awaken a responsive chord 
in a human breast. And for this he must 
have sighed. He was formed for the enjoy- 
ment of life, was endowed with a sensibility 
to the objects around him. He had affections 
— and he delighted to indulge them : he had a 
heart — and he longed to bestow it. There 
were times, too, when he seemed to contract 
an attachment to inanimate objects : the tree 
beneath whose shade he had occasionally sat, 
the fields over whose verdure he had roamed, 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 59 

the sequestered spots where he had often 
strayed, the sea whose shores he had fre- 
quently trod, the mountain-slopes where he 
had been wont to stand, associated as they 
were with communion with Grod and converse 
with his disciples, had become sacred and 
endeared haunts to the holy and sensitive 
heart of Jesus. It might indeed be said that 
the Saviour loved and coveted solitude, occa- 
sionally stealing away to some favorite place 
for meditation and prayer. But there were 
' other and more frequent occasions, especially 
in the deep, lonely sorrower Grethsemane, 
when he seemed to feel the want and to ask 
the soothing of human sympathy. With 
what melting tones must these words have 
fallen on the ears of his little band of follow- 
ers : " Tarry ye here, and watch with meP 
Yes, our Lord's was a solitary life. He 
mingled indeed with man — he labored for 
man — he associated with man — he loved 
man — but he " trod the wine-press alone, and 
of the people there was none with him." 
And yet he was not all alone. Creatures, one 



60 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 

by one, had indeed deserted his side, and left 
him homeless, friendless, solitary — but there 
was One, the consciousness of whose ever- 
clinging, ever-brightening, ever-cheering pres- 
ence infinitely more than supplied the lack. 
"Behold r the hour cometh, yea, is now come, 
that ye shall be scattered evefy man to his 
own, and shall leave me alone : and yet I am 
not alone, because the Father is with me." 
But from the history of Jesus let us turn to a 
parallel page in the history of his saints. 

The disciples of Christ, like their Lord and 
Master, oftenieei themselves alone. The sea- 
son of sickness — the hour of bereavement — 
the period of trial, is often the occasion of in- 
creased depression from the painful conscious- 
ness of the solitude and loneliness in which it 
is borne. The heavenly way we travel is 
more or less a lonely way. We have, at most, 
but few companions. It is a " little flock," 
and only here and there we meet a traveller, 
who, like ourselves, is journeying towards tho 
Zion of Grod. As the way is narrow, trying 
and humiliating to flesh, but few, under the 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 61 

drawings of the Spirit, find it. If, indeed, 
true religion consisted in mere profession, then 
there were many for Christ. If the marks of 
discipleship were merely an orthodox creed — 
excited feeling — denominational zeal — flaming 
partizanship, then there are many that M find 
the way." But if the true travellers are men 
of broken heart — poor in spirit — who mourn 
for sin — who know the music of the Shep- 
herd's voice — who follow the Lamb — who de- 
light in the throne of grace — and who love 
the place of the cross, then ^tere are but 
1 few* with whom the true saints journey to 
heaven in fellowship and communion. 

But the path is even narrower than this — 
the circle is smaller still. How few real com- 
panions do we meet even amongst the saints 
of Grod ! Loving them as we do, and yearn- 
ing for a wider fellowship, yet how few there 
are with whom we can walk side by side ! 
Doctrine divides us from some. If we speak 
of God's eternal love, and free choice, and 
discriminating mercy, we offend. When our 
Lord preached the doctrine of sovereign grace,* 
6 



62 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 

we read that " from that time many of his 
disciples went back, and walked no more with 
him." it is a solemn and affecting thought, 
that even the very doctrines of Christ's gospel 
build a wall of partition between his true dis- 
ciples. Church government and ordinances 
sunder others. The blemishes and imper- 
fections still clinging to the saints, such indeed 
as separated Paul and Barnabas, often inter- 
rupt the full harmony of Christian com- 
munion. The difference of spirituality, too, 
which we fijd in the Lord's people, tends to 
abate much of that communion which ought 
to distinguish the one family of God. We 
meet, perhaps, with but few who have been 
taught precisely in our school, who see truth 
as we see it, and who observe ordinances as 
we observe them, or who can understand the 
intricacies of Christian experience through 
which, with toil and difficulty, we are thread- 
ing our way. Few keep the same pace in 
the Christian race with us. Some linger be- 
hind, while others outrun us. There is one 
• always so lost in a sense of his unworthiness 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 



as never to enter into our joy ; and there is 
another towering, as on the eas:le ? s wins:, and 
soaring into a region whose very purity awes, 
and whose effulgence dazzles us. Thus are 
we learning the solitariness of the way, even 
in the very church and family of God within 
which we are embosomed. 

But not from these causes alone springs the 
sense of loneliness which the saints often feel. 
There is the separation of loving hearts, and 
of kindred minds, and of intimate relation- 
ships, by the providential ordering and deal- 
ings of God. The changes of this changing 
world — the alteration of circumstances — the 
removals to new and distant positions — the 
wastings of disease and the ravages of death, 
often sicken the heart with a sense of friend- 
lessness and loneliness which finds its best 
expression in the words of the Psalmist: "I 
watch, and am as a sparrow alone on the 
house-top." 

But if God " places the solitary in families," 
as he occasionally does, he more frequently 
sets the godly apart from others ; and this 



64 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 

has often been found to be one of his wisest 
and holiest appointments. " Come ye your- 
selves apart, and rest awhile ;" " I will allure 
her into the wilderness," are divine expressions 
which would seem to indicate this instructive 
truth. Shall we enter the chamber of sick- 
ness ? Ah ! what solitude reigns here. The 
gentle movement, the subdued voice, the soft 
tread, the smouldering embers, the shaded 
light, all signify that the scenes and the 
society and the excitement of the world with- 
out, intrude not upon the stillness of that 
world within. Weeks and months and years 
roll on, and still God keeps his child a " pris- 
oner of hope." But since he kas done it, it 
must be well done, for " his way is perfect." 
To be arrested in the midst of activity, enter- 
prise, and usefulness, — to be snatched from 
the pinnacle of honorable distinction, from 
the scene of pleasant labor, from the sooth- 
ing society of friends, from the bosom of the 
domestic circle, within all of which we were 
so warmly nestled, and to find ourselves the 
sickly occupant of a lone and gloomy chamber, 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 65 

from which books and friends and family are 
excluded, is to some a trial of faith and 
patience demanding grace of no ordinary de- 
gree. The pastor torn from his flock, feels it, 
— the minister banished from his pulpit, feels 
it, — the Christian laborer laid aside from his 
loved employ, feels it, — the mother separated 
from her little ones, feels it ; all feel it to be a 
school of which, though the teaching is most 
blessed, yet the discipline is most severe. 

Shall we enter the house of mourning? 
Here is solitude indeed — the heart-aching soli- 
tude such as death only can create. What 
an awful stillness reigns here! The dread 
silence of all sounds has entered ; even the 
living seem to hold their breath while the 
king of terrors passes by. The blinded win- 
dows — the light foot-fall — the wrapt thought- 
fulness — the suppressed conversation — the air 
of desolateness resting on each countenance — 
and speaking from each eye, betokens how 
sad and deep and lonely is the grief with 
which each heart is breaking. Ah, yes ! what 
a solitude does death often create in the life 



66 SOLITUDE SWEETEKED. 

of the Christian. The old companion, and 
/the confiding friend removed — the "strong 
staff broken, and the beautiful rod," — what a 
blank does the universe appear ? 

But should we murmur at the solitary way 
along which our Grod is conducting us? Is it 
not his way, and therefore the best way ? In 
love he gave us friends — in love he has re- 
moved them. In goodness he blessed us with 
health — in goodness he has taken it away. 
In faithfulness he vouchsafed to us affluence 
—in faithfulness he has recalled it. And yet 
this is the way along which he is conducting 
us to glory. And shall we rebel? Heaven is 
the home of the saints ; u here we have no 
continuing city." And shall we repine that 
we are in the right road to heaven ? What, 
if in weariness and sorrow, you were journey- 
ing to the metropolis, where your heart's 
fondest treasure was embosomed ; and you 
were to come to a way on whose finger-post 
was inscribed, — " The road to London," or, 
"The road to Paris," would you, because that 
road was lone and dreary and irksome, indulge 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 67 

in repining feelings, or waste your moments 
and your energies in useless regrets ? Would 
you divert into another and an opposite, be- 
cause a more pleasant and inviting path ? 
No ! The image of your home with its sweet 
attractions — reposing like a fairy isle in the 
sunny distance — would give wings to your 
feet, and carpet every step of that rough way 
with a soft mantle of green. Christ, your 
heart's treasure, is there. And will you mur- 
mur that the way that leads you to it and to 
him is sometimes enshrouded with dark and 
mournful solitude ? the distinguished priv- 
ilege of treading the path that Jesus walked 
in! 

But the solitude of the Christian has its 
sweetness. The Saviour tasted it when he 
said, "I am not alone, because the Father is 
with me ;" and all the lonely way that he 
travelled he leaned upon God. Formed for 
human friendship, and even knowing some- 
thing of its enjoyment — for there reposed 
upon his breast the disciple whom he loved — 
he yet drew the love that sweetened his soli- 



68 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 

tude from a higher than a human source. 
His disciples were scattered, and he was left 
to plod his weary way alone : but his Father 
with him, — this was enough ! 

The society of God is the highest, purest, 
sweetest mercy a saint of God can have on 
earth. Yea, it is the highest, purest, sweetest 
bliss the saints of God can have in heaven. 
What is the enjoyment of heaven ? Not 
merely exemption from trial, and freedom 
from sorrow, and rest from toil, and release 
from conflict : no ! it is the presence — the 
full, unclouded presence of our Father there. 
To be with Christ — to behold his glory — to 
gaze upon his face — to hear his voice — to feel 
the throbbino's of his bosom — to bask in the 
effulgence of God's presence— this is heaven, 
the heaven of heaven ! 

The twilight of this glory we have here on 
earth. "I am not alone," can each sorrowful 
and banished soul exclaim, "because the 
Father is with meP Yes, beloved, your own 
Father. " Thou shalt call me, my Father." 
In Jesus he is your Father — your reconciled, 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 69 

pacified Father — -all whose thoughts that he 
thinks of you, are peace ; and all whose ways 
that he takes with you, are love. The pres- 
ence, the voice, the smile of a parent, how 
precious and soothing ! especially when that 
presence is realized, and that voice is heard, 
and that smile is seen in the dark desolate 
hour of adversity. God is our heavenly 
parent. His presence, his care, his smiles 
are ever with his children. And if there be 
a solitary child of the one family that shares 
the richer in the blessing of the Father's pres- 
ence than another, it is the sick, the suffer- 
ing, the lone, the chastened child. Yes, your 
Father is with you ever. He is with you to 
cheer your loneliness — to sweeten your soli- 
tude — to sanctify your sorrow — to strengthen 
your weakness — to shield your person — to 
pardon your sins, and to heal all your diseases. 
Hearken in your deep solitude to his own 
touching words : " Fear thou not ; for I am 
with thee : be not dismayed ; for I am thy 
God : I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help 
thee ; yea, I will uphold thee w r ith the right 



70 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 



hand of my righteousness." Enough, my 
Father ! if thus thou art with me, I am not, 
I cannot be alone — and if such the bliss with 
which thou dost sweeten, and such the glory 
with which thou dost irradiate the solitude of 
thy hidden ones, Lord, let me ever be a hid- 
den one — shut out from all others, shut in 
alone with thee ! 

" Thou art near, — yes, Lord, I feel it, 
Thou art near where'er I move ; 
And though sense would fain conceal it, 
Faith oft whispers it in love. 

" Thou art near, — what a blessing 
To the souls thy love hath blest 1 
Souls, thy daily care confessing, 
Daily by their God confessed. 

" Why should I despond or tremble 
When Jehovah stoops to cheer ? 
But far rather, why dissemble 
When Omniscience is near ? 

" Am I weak ? thine arm will lead me 
Safe through every danger, Lord : 
Am I hungry ? thou wilt feed me 
With the manna of thy Word. 

"Ami thirsting ? thou wilt guide me 
Where refreshing waters flow ; 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 



Faint or feeble, thoult provide me 
Grace for every want I know. 

" Am I fearful ? thou wilt take me 
Underneath thy wings, my God ! 
Am I faithless ? thou wilt make me 
Bow beneath thy chastening rod. 

" Am I drooping ? thou art near me, 
Near to bear me on my way : 
Am I pleading ? thou wilt hear me, 
Hear and answer when I pray. 

M Then, my soul, since God doth love thee, 
Faint not, droop not, do not fenr ; 
For though his heaven is high above thee, 
He himself is ever near ! 

" Near to watch thy wayward spirit, 
Sometimes cold and careless grown ; 
But likewise near with grace and merit, 
All thy Saviour's, thence thine own."* 

There are many thoughts calculated to 
sweeten the season of Christian solitude 
which we need but simply suggest to the re- 
flective mind. You cannot be in reality alone 
when you remember that Christ and you are 
one — that by his Spirit he dwells in the heart, 
and that therefore he is always near to par- 
ticipate in each circumstance in which you 
* J. S. Monsell. 



72 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 

may be placed. Your very solitude he shares : 
with your sense of loneliness he sympathizes 
You cannot be friendless — since Christ is your 
friend. You cannot be relationless — since 
Christ is your brother. You cannot be unpro- 
tected — since Christ is your shield. Want 
you an arm to lean upon ? — his is outstretched. 
"Want you a heart to repose in ? — his invites 
you to its affection and its confidence. "Want 
you a companion to converse with ? — he wel- 
comes you to his fellowship. sweet soli- 
tude, sweetened by such a Saviour as this ! — 
always present to comfort, to counsel, and to 
protect in times of trial, perplexity, and 
danger. 

There is so much soothing in the reflection 
that it is a Father's presence that sweetens 
the solitude of his child, that I know not how 
to relinquish it. " My Father is with me !" 
what words are these ! Who can harm you 
now ? What can befall you ? When and 
where can you be alone, if your heavenly 
Father is with you ? He is with you on the 
ocean, he is with you on the land. He is 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 73 

with you in your exile, he is with you at 
home. Friends may forsake, and kindred 
may die, and circumstances may change — 
but " my Father is with me!" may still be 
your solace and your boast. And to realize 
the presence of that Father — to walk with 
Orod in the absorbing consciousness of his 
loving eye never removed, of his solemn pres- 
ence never withdrawn, of his encircling arm 
never untwined — welcome the solitude, wel- 
come the loneliness, welcome the sorrow, 
cheered and sweetened and sanctified by such 
a realization as this! "I am not alone, be- 
cause my Father is with me." 

Let the season of temporary solitude be a 
time of earnest prayer — of deep searching of 
heart — of much honest, close, filial transaction 
with yourself and with God. He may have 
allured you into the wilderness, he may thus 
have set you apart from all others for this 
very end. You have been communing much 
with books, and with men, he would now 
have you commune with your own heart and 
with himself. And this, too, may be the 
7 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 



school in which he is about to train you for 
greater responsibility, for more extended use- 
fulness, and for higher honors in his church. 
Moses was withdrawn from Pharaoh's court 
and banished to the solitude of the wilderness 
forty years, in order to train him to be the 
great legislator and leader of God's people. 
Who can tell what numerous blessings are 
about to be realized by you, and through you, 
by the church of God, from the present sea- 
son of silence and repose through which you 
are passing"? to feel a perfect 'satisfaction, 
yea, an ecstatic delight, with all that our 
heavenly Father does. Submission is sweet, 
resignation is sweeter, but joyous satisfaction 
with the whole of God's conduct is sweeter 
still. " My Father, not my will but thine be 
done." Be this, then, your solace — this your 
boast — this your midnight harmony — " I am 

NOT ALONE, BECAUSE MY FATHER IS WITH ME." 

" How heavily the path of life 

Is trod by him who walks alone, 
Who hears not, on his dreary way, 
Affection's sweet and cheering tone ; 



SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 75 



Alone, although his heart should bound 
With love to all things great and fair, 

They love not him, — there is not one 
His sorrow or his joy to share 

'Alone, — though in the busy town, 

Where hundreds hurry to and fro— 
If there is none who for his sake 

A selfish pleasure would forego ; 
And how lonely among those 

Who have not skill to read his heart, 
When first he learns how summer frienda 

At sight of wintry storms depart. 



"My Saviour ! and didst thou too feel 

How sad it is to be alone, 
Deserted in the adverse hour 

By those who must thy love have known I 
The gloomy path, though distant, still 

Was ever present to thy view ; 
O how couldst thou foreseeing it, 

For us that painful course pursue ? 

■ Forsaken of thy nearest friends, 

Surrounded by malicious foes — 
No kindly voice encouraged thee, 

When the loud shout of scorn uprose. 
Yet there was calm within thy soul, 

No stoic pride that calmness kept, 
Nor Godhead unapproached by woe — 

Like man thou hadst both loved and wept 

" Thou wert not then alone, for God 

Sustained thee by his mighty power ; 
His arm most felt, his care most seen, 
When needed most in saddest hour. 



76 SOLITUDE SWEETENED. 



None else could comfort, none else knew 
How dreadful was the curse of sin ; 

He who controlled the storm without, 
Could gently whisper peace within. 

" Who is alone if God be nigh ? 

Who shall repine at loss of friends, 
While he has One of boundless power, 

Whose constant kindness never ends 
Whose presence felt, enhances joy, 

Whose love can stop each flowing tear. 
And cause upon the darkest cloud 

The bow of mercy to appear." 



% tn\t from (Cjfrist 

** The Lord turned, and looked upon Peter."— Luke xxii. 61. 

And who can fully interpret that look ? 
Painters have often attempted to portray it, 
but the pencil has fallen despairingly from 
their hands. The Saviour was now standing 
face to face with Caiaphas — infinite purity 
confronting sin, infinite truth confounding 
error. It was to him a solemn and a critical 
moment. Pleading for his life, all his thoughts, 
and sympathies, and moments might be sup- 
posed to concentrate wholly upon himself. 
But no ! he heard a voice behind him, the 
tones of which were familiar, though start- 
ling, to his ear. It was a voice to which he 
had often listened, as the ear listens to sweet 
sounds ; but dear and familiar as it was, i* 
uttered words of appalling import. It was 



A look fro:j: christ. 



the voice of a loved disciple, a sworn friend, 
who, but a few hours before, had vowed, with 
all the solemnity and emphasis of an oath, 
attachment and fidelity unto death. And 
what was its affirmation ? "I know not the 
man !" His attention, diverted from the trial, 
and his eye, withdrawn from his accusers, the 
" Lord turned, and looked upon Peter." All 
thought and emotion seemed now to gather 
around one object, — the Christ-denying disci- 
ple. His own personal case, now fraught 
with the deepest interest and peril ; the tre- 
mendous responsibility which he at that mo- 
ment sustained ; standing on the eve of ac- 
complishing the eternal purpose of his Father 
in the redemption of his church ; the woe 
through which he was about to pass lowering 
and darkening around him ; yet all seemed 
for the moment to tremble in the balance, be- 
fore the case of a now fallen apostle. " And 
the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." 
Peter met the glance. Not a word was ut- 
tered, not a syllable was breathed, not a finger 
was lifted by the Saviour ; it was but a look 



A LOOK FROM CHRIST. 79 



and yet it was such a look as pierced the 
heart of the sinning apostle. " Peter went 
out and wept bitterly." Let us attempt its 
interpretation. The eye of Jesus is still upon 
us ; it has often reproved us in our wayward- 
ness and folly ; it has often cheered us in our 
loneliness and sorrow ; and it may often chide 
and gladden us again. What is its language? 
It was a look of injured love. Christ 
loved Peter; he loved him with an everlasting 
love. When he allured him from his lowly 
calling, summoned him to be a disciple, and 
ordained him to be an apostle, and " a fisher 
of men," he loved him. Yes ; and he loved 
him, too, at that moment. He was about to 
die — to die for Peter. He knew how false 
and treacherous he .would prove ; how, at a 
most critical period of his life, and amidst 
circumstances the most painful, he would 
deny that he knew him, confirming the dis- 
ownment with an oath and a curse ; yet he 
loved Peter, loved him with an affection that 
never faltered or cooled, — no, not even aj; the 
moment when the denial and the imprecation 



80 A LOOK FROM. CHRIST. 

rose, fiend-like, from his lips. What, then, 
was the language of that look which Christ 
now bent upon Peter ? It seemed to say, " I 
am about to die for thee, Peter, and canst 
thou now deny me ? What have I done, or 
what have I said, worthy of such requital?" 
And what, my reader, are all our backslidings, 
and falls, and unkind returns, but so many 
unjust injuries done to the deep, deathless 
love of Jesus? How do we forget, at the 
moment of excited feeling, that every step we 
take in departure from God, each temptation 
to which we yield assent, and ea-ch sin we 
voluntarily commit, is in the face of love in- 
conceivably great, and unutterably tender. 
Injured love! how reproving its glance! "I 
have died for thee," Jesus says ; " for thee I 
poured out my heart's blood ; and canst thou, 
in view of love like mine, thus grieve, and 
wound, and deny me ?" 

It was a look of painful remembrance, 
" And the Lord turned and looked upon Pe- 
ter. And Peter remembered the word of the 
Lord." His Lord's solemn prediction of hi? 



A LOOK FRO^I CHEIST. 81 

sin he seemed quite to have forgotten. But 
when that look met his eye, it summoned 
back to memory the faded recollections of the 
faithful and tender admonitions that had fore- 
warned him of his fall. There is a tendency 
in our fallen minds to forget our sinful de- 
partures from (rod. David's threefold back- 
sliding seemed to have been lost in deep 
oblivion, until the Lord sent his prophet to 
recall it to his memory. Christ will bring 
our forgotten departures to view, not to up- 
braid or to condemn, but to humble us, and 
to bring us afresh to the blood of sprinkling. 
The heart-searching look from Christ turns 
over each leaf in the book of memory ; and 
sins and follies, inconsistencies and departures, 
there inscribed, but long forgotten, are read 
and re-read, to the deep sin-loathing and self- 
abasement of our souls. Ah ! let a look of 
forgiving love penetrate thy soul, illumining 
memory's dark cell, and how many things, 
and circumstances, and steps in thy past life 
wilt thou recollect to thy deepest humiliation 
before Grod. And ! how much do we need 



82 a look from: Christ. 

thus to be reminded of our admonitions, our 
warnings, and our falls, that we may in all 
our future spirit and conduct " walk humbly 
with Grod." The season of solitude and sor- 
row, suffering reader, is peculiarly favorable 
for this. It is a time of recollection. The 
past is recalled, the life is reviewed, principles, 
motives, and actions are examined, scrutinized, 
and weighed, and the result, if the process is 
fairly and honestly gone into, will be, " Lord ! 
I do remember this day my sin and folly ; 
pardon it, for thy name's sake, and do thou 
remember it no more forever !" 

It was a look of gentle reproof. It seemed 
to convey that reproof in language like this : 
— "I am now bearing thy sin and curse; I 
am about to drink the cup of woe for thee ; 
to take thee, a poor, lost, condemned sinner, 
into my very bleeding heart ; and dost thou 
deny that thou didst ever know me ? Canst 
thou inflict another and a deeper wound ? 
Canst thou add another and a keener pang to 
those now falling, like a storm, upon me from 
my enemies, deriding, and scorning, and re- 



A LOOK FBOM CHRIST. 83 

jecting me ?" 0, what a reproof was that 
look ! It was indeed tender ; but its very 
tenderness made it ail the more keen. Blessed 
Jesus ! we love thee for all the reproofs of 
thine eye, — reproofs most deserved, most 
searching. "We have met thy look in secret ; 
in solitude and in sorrow it has spoken to us, 
revealing our sin and thy displeasure, and we 
bless thee for the look. 

It was a look of full forgiveness. Who 
can doubt but that, at this moment, Jesus, 
by his blessed Spirit, did secretly write upon 
the heart of his backsliding disciple the free 
pardon of his sin. And such is ever the look 
of Christ to us. Be it a look expressive of 
wounded love ; be it a look of mournful re- 
membrance ; or be it a look of searching re- 
proof ; it yet is always a look of most free 
and full forgiveness. "I have pardoned," is 
its language. And this is the meaning of 
Christ's look now penetrating the dark cloud 
of your heart's grief, suffering believer. It 
may revive the recollection of past offences ; 
it may search, and rebuke, and alarm; yet 



84 A LOOK FEOM CHRIST. 

beware of interpreting it all of displeasure : 
it is a look of loving forgiveness. The 
sharpest reproof the look of Christ ever con- 
veyed to a believer, spake of pardoned sin. 
It must be so, since the covenant of peace 
provides, and the atonement of Jesus secures, 
the entire cancelling of all his sin. Meet the 
eye of Jesus, then, with confidence and love. 
There maybe self-reproach in your conscience; 
there is no harsh reproach in his look. The 
uplifted glance of your eye may be sin-re- 
penting, the downward beaming of his is sin- 
forgiving. ! press to your heart the conso- 
lation and joy of this truth, — the glance of 
Jesus falling upon his accepted child ever 
speaks of pardoned sin. Chastened, sorrow- 
ful, and secluded, you may be, yet your sins 
are forgiven you for his name's sake. ! I 
know not a truth more calculated to light up 
the gloom of a lone chamber, to lift up me 
drooping spirit of a heart-sick child of (rod, 
than the announcement that Grod, for Christ's 
sake, has pardoned all his transgressions and 
his sins, and stands to him in the relation of 



A LOOK FROM CHRIST. 85 

a reconciled Father. Suffering child of Grod ! 
with this divine declaration would I come to 
you in your sorrow and seclusion : — " Israel ! 
thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have 
blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy trans- 
gressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins. Return 
unto me ; for I have redeemed thee." ! that 
the Spirit, the Comforter, may sweeten your 
solitude and cheer your gloom, and give you 
this song to sing in the night season of your 
grief: — "Bless the Lord, my soul! and 
forget not all his benefits ; who forgiveth all 
thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, 
who redeemeth thy life from destruction, and 
crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender 
mercies." Forget not that the look of Christ 
is ever, to his saints, a look of pardoning 
love. 

The posture of Jesus when he looked upon 
his sinning disciple was most expressive. 
" The Lord turned" Here was the first step 
of recovery taken on the part of Christ. And 
what has all the restoring conduct of our 
Lord been towards us, but just this turning 

8 



86 A LOOK FROM CHRIST. 

to us, when we had turned from him ? "Wo 
have wandered, he has gone after us ; we 
have departed, he has pursued us ; we have 
stumbled, he has upheld us ; we have fallen, 
he has raised us up again ; we have turned 
from him, he has turned to us. ! the 
wonderful love, and long-suiiering patience of 
Christ ! And what is still his language, 
speaking to us in that look? " Return unto 
me, for- 1 have redeemed thee." And what 
should be the response of our hearts? " Be- 
hold, we come unto thee, for thou art the 
Lord our God." Then, " let us search and 
try our ways, and turn again unto the Lord." 
Yes, my reader, again. What! after all rny 
backslidings and recoveries, my departures 
and returns, may I turn again to the Lord ? 
Yes ! with confidence we say it, " turn again 
unto the Lord." That look of love beaming 
from the eye of Jesus, invites you, woos you 
to return again, yes, this once more, to the 
shelter of his pierced side, to the home of his 
wounded heart. 

And ! how acute the sorrow awakened 



A LOOK FH03I CHRIST. 87 



by a look from Christ. " Peter went out and 
wept bitterly" How melting is the look of 
wounded love ! A Father's eye, beaming 
with tenderness upon a rebellious, wandering 
child, inviting, welcoming his return, — what 
adamant can resist it ? Peter's sorrow, too, 
was solitary. He went out from the high 
priest's hall, and sought some lone place to 
weep. Ah ! the deepest, bitterest, truest 
. grief for sin, is felt and expressed beneath 
God's eye alone. When the wakeful pillow 
of midnight is moistened, when the heart un- 
veils in secret to the eye of Jesus, when the 
chamber of privacy witnesses to the confi- 
dential confessions, and moanings, and plead- 
ings of a wandering heart, there is then felt 
and expressed a sorrow for sin, so genuine, so 
delicate, and so touching, as cannot but draw 
down upon the soul a look from Christ the 
most tender in its expression, and the most 
forgiving in its language. 

And what, my reader, shall be the one 
practical lesson we draw from this subject ? 
Even this — Let us always endeavor to realize 



88 A LOOK FEOM CHEIST. 

the loving eye of Jesus resting upon us. In 
public and in private, in our temporal and 
spiritual callings, in prosperity and in adver- 
sity, in all places and on all occasions, and 
under all circumstances, ! let us live as be- 
neath its focal power. "When our Lord gave 
this look to Peter, his eyes were dim with 
grief; but now that he is in heaven, they are 
as " a flame of fire." To his saints not a burn- 
ing, withering, consuming flame, but a flame 
of inextinguishable love. Deem not yourself, 
then, secluded believer, a banished and an 
exiled one, lost to all sight. Other eyes may 
be withdrawn and closed, distance intercept- 
ing their view, or death darkening their vision; 
but the eye of Jesus, your Lord, rests upon 
you ever, in ineffable delight, and with un- 
slumbering affection. "I will guide thee 
with mine eye," is the gracious promise of 
your God. Be ever and intently gazing on 
that Eye, " looking unto Jesus." He is the 
Fountain of Light ; and in the light radiating 
from his eye you shall, in the gloomiest hour 



f 



A LOOK FR03I CHRIST. 89 

of your life, see light upon your onward way. 
" By his light I walked through darkness." 

' Bend not thy light-desiring eyes below ; 

There thy own shadow waits upon thee ever ; 
But raise thy looks to Heaven, — and lo ! 

The shadeless sun rewards thy weak endeavor. 
Who sees the dark, is dark ; but turn towards the light, 
And thou becornest like that which fills thy sight." 

" We all, with open face, beholding, as in 
a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image from glory to glory, even 
as by the Spirit of the Lord." 
8* 



ioitrq in tjiB Mtornra. 



u And when the people had come into the wood, behold the honey 
dropped. . . . Wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was In 
his hand, and dipped it in an honey-comb, and put his hand to his 
mouth ; and his eyes were enlightened."—! Sam. xiv. 26, 27. 



The Word of God is rich with the most 
beautiful and instructive similitude. We are 
aware there is a limit to its use, and that if 
that limit be overstepped, we may quit the 
field of a sober reality, for the uncertain and 
unsafe path of imagination. Yet, on the 
other hand, since God has " used similitudes 
by the ministry of the prophets," it were folly, 
nay, it were sin to disregard them altogether 
as useless aids in illustrating and elucidating 
divine truth. 

The army of the Lord was now faint and 
weary in the conflict. Saul had rashly en- 
joined that no individual should taste of food 
until the battle had been fought. Ignorant 



HOXEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 91 

of the royal command, Jonathan, on coming 
to a certain wood, and beholding honey drop- 
ping upon the ground, in a moment of ex- 
haustion, put forth the end of his rod, dipped 
it in the honey-comb and partook of it ; " and 
his eyes were enlightened.'' Now each par- 
ticular here is suggestive of some spiritual 
truth. 

Firstly : the Lord's people are often weary 
. nd faint in their spiritual conflicts. It is no 
ideal picture of the Christian life w T hen the 
Word of God represents it in the character of 
a warfare — it is a solemn and serious truth. 
To the tactics of this warfare we do not now 
refer ; ourremarks bear particularly upon that 
peculiar state which the conflict produces — 
weariness and exhaustion. It may be in- 
structive to trace this condition to some of its 
causes. Amongst these may be stated, the 
nature and the number of his spiritual foes. 
It may be at the risk of damping the ardor 
of a young recruit, that we give prominence 
to this idea, nevertheless, ignorance of our 
enemies, their strength and variety, has often 



92 HOXEY IN THE WILDEBKESB, 

led to disastrous consequences. The very 
field upon which the battle is fought is one of 
sore temptation. What is the world to the 
believer, but one of his greatest snares ? Is 
there in it anything that sympathizes with 
the Christian character ? Anything in its 
pursuits, its pleasures, its policy, which ad- 
vances in his soul the divine life? Can he in 
his weakness extract from it strength ? Can 
he in his trials derive from it comfort ? Can 
he in his difficulties ask from it aid? Quite 
the reverse. Yes, the very battle-field is one 
of severe temptation* to the Christian warrior. 
We can only compare his position to an armed 
force going out to war, and startled at every 
turn by some wild beast rushing from its lair, 
or perilled by some pitfall lying concealed at 
every step. This is no over-wrought picture 
of the world through which the saints are 
passing. Things that are lawful, are snares. 
Things, too, that wear the most innocent and 
innocuous form, often conceal the greatest 
danger. Yet how little are we broad awake 
to this. Why does the apostle so frequently 



HOXEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 93 

and so earnestly warn the Church of (rod 
against the world ? Because he knew it to 
be one of his most subtle and most dansrerous 
foes. I believe the day is coming — hasten, 
Lord, its arrival ! — when God will so pour out 
his Spirit upon his church, that it will be 
considered then as glaring an inconsistency 
for a Christian man to become a partner in 
business with a worldly man, as it is now to 
form an alliance still closer and more sacred 
with one who is not a follower of the Lord 
Jesus. " Know ye not, that the friendship of 
the world is enmity with God ? Whosoever 
therefore will be a friend of the world is the 
enemy of God." " Wherefore come out from 
among them, and be ye separate, saith the 
Lord." 

And what shall we say of his great, unseen, 
but not less dangerous enemy — the devil? 
Satan has a more accurate knowledge of us 
than we have of ourselves. He studies us as 
we study a book. Without ascribing: to him 
divine attributes, there is a kind of ubiquity 
belonging to him which renders him a most 



94 HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 

formidable, because an ever-present foe. Nor 
do we think that it is id things decidedly evil 
that Satan proves most successful with the 
child of Grod. It is oftener in things which 
wear the appearance and the semblance of 
good. It is Satan robed as " an angel of 
light," not Satan appearing as a fiend of 
darkness, that we have most to dread. Hence 
we have reason to beware of the many spe- 
cious, but false religions of the day. 

And when with the world and the devil, he 
numbers among his spiritual foes, the cor- 
ruptions of his fallen nature, the subtilty 
and deep depravity of his own heart ; is it 
marvellous that the believer should often be 
dispirited in the spiritual conflict? " Cast 
down, but not destroyed." 

The defeats too which he is constantly sus- 
taining — the cutting off of supplies upon 
which he depended — the seeming withdraw- 
ment of the Captain of his salvation, as if 
indifferent to the conflict — the rusting of his 
armor — the defection in the camp of some, 
the desertion from the ranks of others, and 



HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS. VO 

the falls upon the battle-field of yet more, 
often deeply discourage the Christian soldier. 
His heart sickens, his spirits droop, his courage 
fails, and he lays him down upon his shield, 
as if to die. 

But there is htfney in the desert for the 
Christian soldier, ;i faint yet pursuing.*' There 
is appropriate refreshment for the weariness 
and exhaustion of the conflict. The Israelites 
had been sore pressed by the Philistines. 
They had fought hard all that day. The rash 
injunction of their royal leader, had greatly 
aggravated their suffering. They were for- 
bidden to partake of any nourishment until 
the evening. Exhausted and faint, weary 
and discouraged, they light upon a spot in the 
forest where honev fell, luxuriant and inviting, 
upon the ground. It met the case of the 
king's son. He partook of it, and his droop- 
ing spirit revived within him. The Lord of 
hosts, the Captain of our salvation, has a 
kind and considerate regard for his weary and 
discouraged soldiers. They are fighting in 
his cause — they are battling for his truth — 



96 HONEY EH" THE WILDEKjSTESS. 

they have come to his help against the mighty, 
and in the hour when their strength fails, and 
their spirits droop, and their hearts faint, he 
will guide them to the spot in the desert, 
where the honey — the nourishment of his pro- 
viding — is found, and of \fchich they may eat 
abundantly. 

The similitude is one of frequent occurrence 
in the Bible. When God would describe the 
richness of Palestine, he speaks of it as a 
"land flowing with milk and honey" This, 
too, would appear to have been a provision 
especially made by him for the nourishment 
of his church in the wilderness. Moses says 
that the Lord made his people to "suck honey 
out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty 
rock." It is quite clear, then, that we may 
regard this species of food as the symbol of 
great spiritual blessings. The sources from 
whence the Christian's nourishment is derived 
are various. "We should be grateful to God 
that he has not limited us to one secondary 
source of spiritual nourishment. It was 
proper, it was wise and gracious in God that 



HOXEY IN THE WILDERNESS; 97 

tliere should be but one Plant of Renown, 
but one Ptose of Sharon, but one Lily of the 
Valley, but one Living Vine ; in other words, 
that there should be but one Saviour and Re- 
deemer, but one Head and Reservoir of the 
church. But there are offshoots from this 
divine plant ; there are streams issuing from 
this sacred fountain-head, from each of which 
the believer in his weariness and sorrowing 
may, by faith, extract the nourishment that 
strengthens and revives him. I would repeat 
it, — be grateful to God for this. Suppose his 
people were shut up to but one mean of grace 
— that mean the Gospel ministry; and sup- 
pose he were to assign your lot where no such 
channel were accessible, — how would it fare 
with your soul ? But it is not so. Let his 
Providence guide you to the farthest spot on 
the earth, — the desert, the forest, the prairie, 
— where no ministry of reconciliation pro- 
claims the unsearchable riches of Christ, yet, 
even there, he can guide you to the spot 
where falls the honey, abundant as his own 
affluence, and free as his own grace can make 




98 HOXEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 



it. Such, believer, may be your present con- 
dition. The seclusion of a sick chamber, the 
solitude of the house of mourning, the depri- 
vation in other ways of the wonted means of 
grace, may be to you like an exile from the 
land of milk and honey ; but the Lord has 
his heart upon you still, and " he doth devise 
means, that his banished be not expelled from 
him." There is honey for you in the wood. 

What is the Word of God but this honey ? 
David's experience shall testify. " How-sweet 
are thy words unto my taste ! Yea, sweeter 
than honey to my mouth !" And from whence 
does this honey fall, but from the heart of 
God ? What is the word of God ? It is ih.Q 
unfolding of the heart of God. His mind 
conveys the word, but his heart dictates the 
word. Take the promises ; how " exceeding 
great and precious" they are. Have you not 
often found them sweet to your taste as the 
honey and. the honey-comb ? When some 
portion of the word suited to your present 
need has been brought home to your heart by 
the sealing power of the Holy Ghost, how 



HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 99 

have all other sweets become bitter to your 
taste compared with this. Your Heavenly 
Father saw your grief, your divine Captain 
beheld your conflict and your exhaustion, and 
bade his Spirit go and drop that sweet promise 
into your sad heart, and you found the en- 
trance of Grod's word gave light and comfort 
to your sad and gloomy spirit. 

The love of God in Christ ! it is sweeter 
than honey ! The love that gave Christ — 
that chose us in Christ — that hath blessed us 
in Christ — that gives us standing in Christ ; 
surely it passeth all knowledge. To see it 
travelling over all the opposition of our unbe- 
lieving minds, and the corruption of our de- 
praved hearts, and meeting us at some pecu- 
liar stage of our journey, in some painful 
crisis of our history, in some bitter lonely 
trial through which we are passing, how does 
this exalt our views of its greatness, and 
bring us into the experience of its sweetness. 
Such, too, is the love of the Spirit. His love 
as tasted in his calling — in his comforting — 
n his sanctifying — in his witnessing, and in 



100 HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 

all his effectual and unwearied teaching, 
" G-od is love" — and on this truth — sweet in 
our present experience — we shall be living 
through eternity : " If so be we have tasted 
that the Lord is gracious." 

But let us not overlook the honey -comb — 
the depository of this spiritual nourishment. 
" It pleased the Father that in Jesus should 
all fulness dwell." If the grace that flows 
from Jesus is sweet, Jesus himself is sweeter 
still. Let us not, then, be satisfied with 
the fulness of Christ ; but let us live on 
the person of Christ : " He that eateth of my 
flesh, and drinketh of my blood, dwelleth in 
me, and I in him." I fear we have too little 
contact with Christ himself. We do not suf- 
ficiently make him our personal friend — walk- 
ing with him, talking with him, confiding in 
him as we would with the dearest personal 
friend of our hearts. And yet this is our 
high and precious privilege. " This is my 
Friend," should be the language of every 
believer, as he points to, and leans upon, 
Christ. 



HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 101 

The place where this . honey — the symbol 
of such spiritual blessing — was found, was 
the "wood." Beloved, the covenant of grace, 
the fulness that is in Christ, is not for heaven, 
but for earth. It is not for the church 
triumphant, but for the church militant — the 
church in her warfare. Here it is the battle 
is fought, and the conflict is passing, and the 
enemy assails, and the wound is inflicted, 
and the heart faints, and the spirit is dis- 
couraged, and the soul is weary. This honey 
of God's providing is for the season of sorrow 
and seclusion, for the want and weariness, 
the entanglement and loneliness of the forest. 
Then, refuse it not, child of sorrow ! 
Stretch forth your rod of faith, and gather of 
it abundantly. "Eat, friends," is your 
Lord's invitation. Drink deeply of your 
Father's love — draw largely from Christ's 
fulness — confide implicitly in God's word — 
invoke believingly the Spirit's help. All is for 
you. God is the God of the tried — Jesus is 
the Saviour of the tried — the Spirit is the 
Comforter of the tried — the Bible, with all its 



102 HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 

consolations and its hopes, is the Book of the 
tried. Eat of this honey, and your spirit 
shall be revived. Your eyes will be opened 
to see new depths of love in Gfod, new cham- 
bers of repose in Christ, new promises of 
sweetness in the Word, and new unfold ings 
of wisdom, truth, and goodness in the present 
conduct of him whose dealings may be veiled 
in painful mystery, but who will never forget 
to lead his valiant yet exhausted soldier to 
the honey in the wood. 

Nor let us overlook the mingling of the bit- 
ter and the sweet in the Lord's dealings with 
us here. Like the Apocalyptic book eaten by 
John, which was in his " mouth sweet as 
honey : and as soon as he had eaten, was bit- 
ter ;" so are often blended the varied dispen- 
sations of our Grod. It is a most wise and 
gracious arrangement. All bitter would have 
dispirited ; all sweet would have cloyed. The 
one would have created despondency, and tho 
other, loathing. Thus, our sorrows and our 
joys, our trials and our succorings, our defeats 
and our victories, are strangely, wisely, and 



HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 103 

kindly blended in this the ;i time of our so- 
journing/' 

Be skilful and diligent to extract this honey 
from every, the bitterest flower. that Grod 
may make us wise to do this. The sweetest 
apprehensions of Christ have often been in the 
bitterest dispensations of God's providence. 
The stone that was rolled upon the tomb of 
Christ was heavy : but Christ was beneath it. 
There may be a stone of difficulty in the way 
of our mercies, but faith rolling it away, that 
very difficulty will be found to have brought 
us to a living Christ full of sweet grace and 
truth. And let us remember, too, that it is 
along the path of filial and unreserved obedi- 
ence that this honey is most thickly strewed. 
" that my people had hearkened unto me, 
and Israel had walked in my ways !" "What 
would have been their reward ? " He should 
have fed them also with the finest of the 
wheat : and with honey out of the rock should 
have satisfied them." 

Beware of being so surfeited with the 
world, with earthly care and carnal enjoy- 



104: HOXEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 

ment as to loathe this honey. " The full soul 
loathed the honey -comb." Israel loathed the 
manna. Learn one reason why Grod has 
placed you just where you are — even to 
create in your soul a zest and a taste for this 
honey. He will embitter the world's sweets, 
when they embitter his. But Jesus can make 
the world's bitter, sweet, and the creature's 
sweet,, sweeter. Receive all as from Christ, 

)and enjoy all as in Christ, and then shall Christ 

I be to you all and in all. 

Soon we shall be in glory, soon we shall es- 
cape from the world, and enter the paradise of 
God. There the boughs are laden, and drop 
with honey that never wastes, and that never 
cloys. The weary pilgrim and the veteran 
warrior shall repose by the side of the rock 
from whence flowed this precious food all 
through the desert, partaking of its fulness, 
lasting as eternity. You who have tasted the 
honey in the wilderness, shall assuredly par* 
take of it in your Father's house. 

" Spent with the toil of wasting war, 
His hosts, with him, compelled to fast, 



HOXEY IN THE WILDERNESS. 105 

The longing chief of Israel saw 

Where nature furnished wild repast. 

■ The aged terebinth had shed 

Its pure and luscious treasure round ; 
And the rich feast lay duly spread, 
Free as the winds along the ground 

" For there, upon the tangled grass, 

Dropt the sweet burden of that hive ; 
Yet, till the dial's shade should pass, 
Xo Hebrew might partake and live. 

■ The monarch's son, the empire's heir, 

The leader in the conflict's van, 
The victor — say, what was he there? 
A weary, worn and famished man ! 

" He took and eat — no more oppressed, 

From eyes, enlightened, flashed his joy I 
fainting soul ! be thou as blest 

With drops of grace, that never cloy. 

"And praise Him who leads sons of care, 
Pursued by sin and sore distress — 
From famine and from flight, to where 
There's honev in the wilderness."* 



* William B. Tappan. 



€\}t #iiMt{ iBitora rnniiMiig in tjjt 
Atom's #nl 

" Let thy widows trust in me." — Jerem. xlix. 11. 

It is well! All that he does, who speaks 
these touching words, is well. It is well with 
you, for he who gave in love, in love has taken 
away the mercy that he gave. The companion 
of your youth, the friend of your bosom, the 
treasure of your heart, the staff of your riper 
and the solace of your declining years, is re- 
moved, but since Grod has done it — it is, it 
must be well. Look now above the circum- 
stances of your deep and dark sorrow, the 
second causes of your bereavement, the proba- 
ble consequences of your loss, — Grod has done 
it ; and that very Grod who has smitten, who 
has bereaved, and who has removed your all 
of earthly good, now invites you to trust in 
Mm. Chance has not brought you into this 



THE WIDOWS GOD. 107 

state ; accident has not bereft you of your 
treasure ; God has made you a widow, that 
you may confide in the widow's God. 

With your peculiar case the word of God in 
a pre-eminent degree sympathizes. It would 
seem, indeed, as if a widow's sorrow arid a 
widow's desolateness took the precedence of 
all other bereavements in the Bible. It is 
touched with a hand so gentle, it is referred to 
with a tenderness so exquisite, it is quoted 
with a solemnity so profound, it would seem 
as if God had taken the widow's sorrow, if I 
may so express myself, into his heart of hearts. 
" Ye shall not afflict any widow" — " He doth 
execute the judgment of the widow? — " The 
sheaf in the field shall be for the widow? — 
"He felieveth the widow? — "He will estab- 
lish the border of the widow? — " A judge of 
the widow is God," — " Plead for the widow? — 
" If ye oppress not the widow? — " Pure reli- 
gion and undefiled before God and the Father 
is this, to visit the widows in their affliction," 
— "Let your widows trust in me." What a 
cluster of divine and precious consolations for 



108 THE GODLY WIDOW CONFIDING 

the widow is here ! How do their extraordi- 
nary appropriateness to her case, their extreme 
delicacy in dealing with her position, their es- 
pecial regard for her circumstances ; above all, 
their perfect sympathy with her lonely sorrow, 
betray the heart from whence they flow ! 

And who is the object of the widow's 
trust? " In me," says God. None less than 
himself can meet your case. He well con- 
siders that there is an acuteness in your sor- 
row, a depth in your loss, a loneliness and a 
helplessness in your position, which no one 
can meet but himself. The first, the best, 
the fondest, the most protective of creatures 
has been torn from your heart, is smitten 
down at your side ; what other creature could 
now be a substitute ? A universe of beings 
could not fill the void : God in Christ only 
can. ! wonderful thought, that the Divine 
Being should come and embosom himself in 
the bereft and bleeding heart of a human 
sufferer — that bereft and bleeding heart of 
yours. He is especially the God of the 
widow. And when he asks your confidence; 



IN THE WIDOWS GOD. 109 

and invites your trust, and bids you lift your 
weeping eye from the crumbled idol at your 
feet, and fix it upon himself, he offers you an 
infinite substitute for a finite loss ; thus, as he 
ever does, giving you infinitely more than he 
took ; bestowing a richer and a greater bless- 
ing than he removed. He recalled your 
husband, but he bestows himself. And 0, 
the magnitude of this trust ! It is to have 
infinite power to protect you, infinite wisdom 
to guide you, infinite love to comfort you, in- 
finite faithfulness at all times to stand by 
you, and boundless resources to supply your 
every need. It is to have the God who made 
heaven and earth, the God to whom the 
spirits of all creatures are subject, the God 
who gave his dear Son to die for you, the 
God of the everlasting covenant to be your 
shield, your counsellor, your provider, your 
God forever and ever, and your guide even 
unto defath. 

And what are you invited thus to entrust 
to God ? First, your own self. It is one of 
the greatest, as it is one of the most solemn 
10 



110 THE GODLY WIDOW CONFIDING 

peculiarities of the Gospel, that it deals with 
us as individuals. It never, in all the com- 
mands it enjoins, and in all the blessings it 
promises, loses sight of our individuality. 
This, then, is a personal confiding. You are 
to trust yourself into God's hands ; God 
seems now to stand to you in a new relation. 
He has always been your Father and your 
Friend. To these he now adds the relation of 
Husband. Your present circumstances seem to 
invest you with a new claim, not upon his love 
— for he has always loved you, as he loves you 
now — but upon his especial, his peculiar, his 
tender care ; the affectionate solicitude of the 
husband blending with the tender love of the 
father. You are to flee to him in your help- 
lessness, to resort to him in your loneliness, to 
confide to him your wants, and to weep your 
sorrows upon his bosom. Secondly, your 
children. " Leave your fatherless children ; I 
will preserve them alive." A state of half- 
orphanage is one of peculiar interest to God. 
A fatherless child is an object of his especial 
regard and care. "Thou art the helper of 



IN THE WIDOW'S GOD. Ill 

the fatherless ," — " A father of the fatherless 
is God," — " Enter not into the field of the 
fatherless ; for their Redeemer is mighty, he 
will plead their cause with thee." En- 
couraged by this invitation and this promise, 
take, then, your fatherless ones, and lay them 
on the heart of God. He has removed their 
earthly father, that he may adopt them as his 
own. His promise that he will " preserve 
them alive," you are warranted to interpret 
in its best and widest sense. It must be re- 
garded as including, not temporal life only, 
but also spiritual life. God never offers us 
an inferior blessing, when it is in his power 
to confer, and our circumstances demand, a 
greater. He will preserve your fatherless 
ones alive temporarily, providing all things 
necessary for their present existence ; but, 
infinitely more than this, he will, in answer 
to the prayer of faith, preserve their souls 
unto eternal life. Thus it is a promise of the 
life that now is, and also of that which is to 
come. Thirdly, your concerns are to be en- 
trusted to God. These, doubtless, press at 



112 THE GODLY WIDOW CONFIDING 

this moment with peculiar weight upon your 
mind. They are new and strange. They 
were once cared for by one in whose judgment 
you had implicit confidence, whose mind 
thought for you, whose heart beat for you, 
whose hands toiled for you, who in all things 
sought to anticipate every wish, to reciprocate 
every feeling; 'who lessened his cares by 
your sympathy, and multiplied his pleasures 
by your participation ;' whose esteem, and 
affection, and confidence, shed a warm and 
mellow light over the path of life. These 
interests, once confided to his judgment and 
control, must now be entrusted to a wiser and 
more powerful friend, — to him who is truly 
and emphatically the widow's God. Trans- 
ferred to his government, he will make them 
all his own. Your care will be his cares ; 
your concerns will be his concern ; your chil- 
dren will be his children ; your need the occa- 
sion of his supply ; and your fears, perils, and 
dejection, the period of his soothing, protec- 
tion, and love. And just at this period of 
your life, when every object and every scene 



IK THE WIDOW'S GOD. 113 

appears to your view trembling with uncer- 
tainty and enshrouded with gloom, God — the 
widow's God — speaks in language well calcu- 
lated to awaken in your soul a song in the 
night, — "Let thy widows trust in me." 0! 
have faith, then, in this word of the living 
God, and all will be well with you. It will 
be well with your person, it will be well with 
your children, it will be well with your 
estate. The God who cared for the widow of 
Zarephath, the Saviour who had compassion 
on the bereaved widow of Nain, is your God 
and Saviour ; and the same regard for your 
interests, and the same sympathy for your 
sorrow, will lighten your cares and cheer the 
desolateness of your widowhood. Only trust 
in God. Beware of murmuring at his deal- 
ings, of doubting his kindness, of distrusting 
his word, and of so nursing your grief as to 
refuse the consolation your God and Saviour 
proffers you. The sweetest joy may yet 
spring from your bitter, lonely sorrow; and 
the richest music may yet awake from your 
unstrung and silent harp. If a human power 
10* 



114: THE GODLY WIDOW CONFIDING 

and sympathy could " make the widow's 
heart to sing for joy," ! what joy cannot 
God's power and love create in that desolate, 
bleeding, widowed heart of thine. Place it, 
then, all stricken and lonely as it is, in God's 
hands ; and, breathing over it his loving Spirit, 
he will turn its tears, its sighs, its moanings, 
into the sweetest midnight harmony. 

"Long have I viewed, long have I thought, 
And held with trembling hand this bitter draught ; 
'Twas now first to my lips applied ; 
Nature shrank in, and all my courage died. 
But now resolved and firm I'll be, 
Since, Lord, 'tis mingled and reached out by thee. 

" Since 'tis thy sentence I should part 
With the most precious treasure of my heart, 
I freely that and more resign ; 
My heart itself, as its delight is thine. 
My little all I give to thee — 
Thou gavest a greater gift, thy Son, to me. 

" He left true bliss and joys above, 
Himself he emptied of all good but love ; 
For me he freely did forsake 
More good than he from me can take, 
A mortal life for a divine 
He took, and did at last even that resign. 

"Take all, great God ! I will not grieve ; 
But still will wish that I had still to give. 



IN THE WIDOW'S GOD. 115 



I hear thy voice ; thou bidd'st me quit 

My paradise ; I bless, and do submit ; 

I will not murmur at thy word, 

Nor beg thy angel to sheathe up his sword' 



looking irntn §*sas. 

" Looking unto Jesus." — Heb. xii. 2. 

It was no little kindness in our God that as 
one saving object, and one alone, was to en- 
gage the attention and fix the eye of the soul, 
through time and through eternity, that object 
should be of surpassing excellence and of peer- 
less beauty. That he should be, not the sweet- 
est seraph nor the loveliest angel in heaven, 
but his own Son, the " brightness of his glory, 
the express image of his person." God delights 
in the beautiful ; all true beauty emanates 
from him. What a beautiful picture was this 
world as it rose from beneath his pencil ! What 
a magnificent piece of sculpture was man, as 
he came forth from his hands. And despite 
of the withering blight which has fallen upon 
all that was once so perfect, how much beauty 
still lingers around the works and creatures of 



LOOKING- UNTO JESUS. 117 

Grod. "He hath made all things beautiful. " 
To recur to the thought just advanced, how 
worthy of himself that, in providing a Saviour 
for fallen man, bidding him fix the eye of 
faith supremely and exclusively upon him, 
that Saviour should unite in himself all divine 
and all human beauty ; that he should be the 
"chiefest among ten thousand, the altogether 
lovely/' Adore the name, ! praise the love 
of our Grod, for this. To this peerless object, 
to this glorious Saviour, then, we are now in- 
vited to look. And in " looking unto Jesus," 
let it be remembered that it is not exclusive 
of the Father, nor of the Holy Spirit. In 
looking unto Jesus for salvation, we include 
each Divine Person of the glorious Trinity. 
"We cannot look unto Jesus without seeing the 
Father, for Christ is the revelation of the 
Father. " He that hath seen me," says Christ, 
"hath seen the Father." Nor can we con- 
template Jesus exclusive of the Holy Spirit, 
because it is the Spirit alone who imparts 
the spiritual eye that sees Jesus. Thus, in 
the believing and saving view a poor sinner 



118 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 

has of Jesus, he beholds, in the object of his 
sight, a revelation of each separate Person of 
the ever-blessed Trinity, engaged in devising 
and accomplishing his eternal salvation. O ! 
what a display of infinite love and wisdom is 
here, that in our salvation one object should 
arrest the eye, and that that object should em- 
body an equal revelation of the Father, who 
gave Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit of truth, 
who leads to Jesus, and that that object should 
be the loveliest being in the universe. Look- 
ing unto Jesus ! most refreshing and sweet 
are these words ! What an embodiment of 
truth ! How simple, yet how grand ! How 
brief, yet how expressive ! They involve the 
following points : — " Looking unto Jesus," 
from everything; " Looking unto Jesus," in 
everything; " Looking unto Jesus," for ev- 
erything. 

Eirst, " Looking unto Jesus," from every- 
thing. The eye cannot properly contemplate 
two 'different objects with equal simplicity and 
distinctness at the same moment. It is equally 
contrary to the philosophy of mind, that it can 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 119 

give its supreme study to more than one sub- 
ject at a time. This will hold good in mat- 
ters of faith. The object of faith is one, the 
trust of faith is one, the giver of faith is one, 
— " looking unto Jesus.''' Now a true spiritual 
beholding of the Lord Jesus in the great mat- 
ter of our eternal salvation, requires that we 
look from every other object that would divide 
our attention, to him alone. We must look 
from ourselves. This is, perhaps, the most 
common and insidious object that comes be- 
tween the eye of the soul and Jesus. When 
God was ejected from the heart of man, self 
vaulted into the vacant throne, and has ever 
since maintained a supremacy. It assumed 
two forms, from both of which we are to look 
in looking savingly to Jesus. We must look 
from righteous self; from all works of right- 
eousness which we can perform, from our 
almsgivings, from our charities, from our re- 
ligious observances, our fastings, and prayers, 
and sacraments ; from all the works of the 
law by which we are seeking to be justified ; 
from all our efforts to make ourselves better, 



120 LOOKING- UNTO JESUS. 

and thus to do something to commend our- 
selves to the Divine notice, and to propitiate 
the Divine regard ; from all this we must 
look, if we rightly look unto Jesus to be 
saved by his righteousness, and by his alone. 
The noble language of the Apostle must find 
an echo in our hearts : — " "What things were 
gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss 
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord : for whom I have suffered the 
loss of all things, and do count them but dung 
that I may win Christ, and be found in him, 
not having mine own righteousness, which is of 
the law, but that which is through the faith 
of Christ, the righteousness which is of Grod 
by faith." We must equally, too, look unto 
Jesus from unrighteous self. Our sins and 
transgressions and iniquities, — red as crimson, 
countless as the sands, and towering as the 
Alps, — are not for one moment to intercept or 
obscure our looking unto Jesus for salvation. 
Jesus is a Saviour, as his precious name sig- 
nifies. As such, he came to save us from our 



LOOKING- XffiTG JESUS. 121 

sins, be those sins never so great for magni- 
tude, or infinite for number. It is impossible 
that we can look unto Jesus, and feel the joy 
of his salvation flowing into our hearts, while 
at the same time, we are looking at the num- 
ber and the turpitude of our sins. "We must 
not look at the sin and at the Saviour at the 
same time ; but beholding by faith him who 
"bore our sins in his own body on the tree," 
who was "made a sin-offering for us," who 
was "w r ounded for our transgressions, and was 
bruised for our iniquities," who shed his pre- 
cious blood that the guiltiest may be cleansed, 
and the vilest saved, and between whom and 
the penitent sinner, though he were another 
Manasseh, another Saul of Tarsus, another 
dying malefactor, no transgression and no 
crime can interpose an effectual barrier, w T e 
shall see the exceeding greatness and sinful- 
ness of sin in a clearer, and more searching 
and solemn light, than we possibly could view- 
ing it apart from the cross. Look unto Jesus, 
then, from your sins; their magnitude and 
their number interpose no difficulty, and form 
11 



122 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 

no real discouragement to your immediate ap- 
proach to Christ. No argument based upon 
your unworthiness can avail to exclude you 
from an interest iu his great salvation. He 
came into the world to save sinners, even the 
chief. All that he did, and all that he said, and 
all that he suffered, was for sinners. It is his 
work, it is his joy, it is his glory to save sin- 
ners. For this lie exchanged heaven for earth, 
relinquished the bosom of his Father for the 
embrace of the cross. He was never known 
to reject a poor sinner that came to him; he 
has never refused to take within. his sheltering 
side, to hide within his bleeding bosom, the 
penitent that sought its protection, fleeing from 
the condemnation of the law to the asylum of 
the cross. " Whoso cometh unto me I will in 
no wise cast out." With such a declaration 
as this, flowing from the lips of Jesus, who 
can refuse to look from the greatness of his 
own sin and guilt to the greatness of his love, 
the greatness of his grace, the greatness of his 
salvation, "who came into the world to save 
sinners." 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 123 

In " looking unto Jesus,'' we must also look 
from churches, as from ourselves. Grod has 
placed salvation for a lost sinner in no church 
upon earth. He has ordained that salvation 
should exist only in the Lord Jesus. To sub- 
stitute, then, the church of God for the Christ 
of (rod, faith in the church for faith in the 
Saviour of the church, surely were a crime 
of the deepest guilt, entailing consequences 
the most dire. The church of God is herself 
a fallen, sinful, and impotent body, She is 
pardoned, justified, and accepted alone in her 
one, divine and great Head ; and " there is no 
other name given amongst men whereby they 
may be saved," but the name of Jesus. He, 
then, who is looking to any church, or to 
church privileges for salvation, whatever the 
name by which that church is called, what- 
ever the power it claims, or the authority it 
assumes, shall as assuredly perish in his vain 
refuge as Joab perished when he fled from 
the vengeance of the king, into the " taber- 
nacle of the Lord, and caught hold of the 
horns of the altar," but fell beneath its sacred 



124 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 

shadow, weltering in his blood. Escape^ 
then, from every other refuge, and flee to 
Jesus, the true Sanctuary and the true Altar, 
where safety and salvation alone are found. 

Second, " Looking unto Jesus," in every- 
thing. In the deep study of the holiness of 
the law, and the strictness of divine justice, 
what a suitable and glorious object for the 
alarmed and trembling spirit to look upon is 
he who came to honor that law and to satisfy 
that justice. Are you agitated -by thoughts 
of the Divine holiness, and your own im- 
purity ? Do you tremble as you contemplate 
God's determination to punish sin, by no 
means clearing the guilty ? Look unto Jesus, 
and let your trembling subside into the calm- 
ness with which his whisper stills the tem- 
pest. He has become " the end of the law 
for righteousness," to all that believe. His 
atonement, while it vindicates the majesty of 
the Father's government, spreads its mighty 
shield around the Father's child ; and thus 
protected, neither the thunder of the law nor 
the flaming sword of justice can reach him. 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 125 

! the blessedness of looking, by faith, ta 
Jesus, from the wrath and the condemnation 
justly due to our transgressions ; to see all 
that wrath and condemnation borne by him 
who wept and bled in the garden, who lan- 
guished and died upon the tree ; to see Jesus, 
with the keys of all authority and power sus- 
pended from his girdle, closing up our hell, 
and opening wide our heaven. In the season 
of solitude and sorrow, Christian reader, when 
thoughts of God's holiness mingle with views 
of your sinfulness, and fears of Divine wrath 
blend with the consciousness of your just 
deserts, darkening that solitude and embitter- 
ing that sorrow, ! turn and fix your be- 
lieving eye upon the divine, the suffering, the 
atoning Saviour, and peace, composure, and 
joy will lull your trembling spirit to rest. 
You are not sick, nor in solitude, nor in sor- 
row, because there is wrath in God, for all 
that wrath was borne by your Redeeming 
Surety. You are so — ! that you could 
believe it — because God is love. Divine 
goodness sent the sickness, mingled the cup 
11* 



126 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 



of sorrow, and marked out your lonely path. 
It must be, since Jesus so bore away the 
curse and the sin, that Grod now brims the 
cup he emptied with a love that passeth 
knowledge. " My son, despise not the chas- 
tening of the Lord, neither be thou weary of 
his correction : for whom the Lord loveth, he 
correcteth, even as a father the son in whom 
he delighteth" Your heavenly Father loves 
you, and delights in you ; therefore he chas- 
tens and corrects you. 'Despise"* it not, then, 
on the one hand ; and be not ' toear?/ of it on 
the other. 

In every position of life, our privilege is to 
be " looking unto Jesus." (rod can place us 
in no circumstances, be they humble or ex- 
alted, in which we may not repair to Christ 
for the wisdom and the strength, the grace 
and the consolation, those circumstances de- 
mand. It is our mercy to know that Grod 
adapts himself to every position of his saints. 
He knows that in times of prosperity, the 
feet of his saints are apt to slide ; and that in 
times of adversity, they are often pierced and 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 127 

wounded. Thus, in the smooth path, as in 
the rough, Jesus is to be the one object to 
which the eye is raised, and upon which it 
rests. If he exalts you, as he may do, to any 
post of distinction and responsibility, look 
unto Jesus, and study the self-annihilation 
and lowliness of his whole life : and seek the 
grace to sustain you in the position for which 
your own powers are most inadequate. If he 
lays you low, as in his dealings with his peo- 
ple he often does, from the depth of your 
humiliation let your eye look unto Jesus, who 
reached a depth in his abasement infinitely 
beneath your own; and who can descend to 
your circumstances, and impart the grace 
that will enable you so to adapt yourself to 
them as to glorify him in them. Thus you 
will know both how to abound, and how to 
suffer need. 

In each season of affliction, to whom can 
we more appropriately look than to Jesus? 
He was pre-eminently the man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief. If you would tell 
your grief to one who knew grief as none 



128 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 

.9 

ever knew it ; if you would weep upon the 
bosom of one who wept as none ever wept ; if 
you would disclose your sorrow to one who 
sorrowed as none ever sorrowed ; if you would 
bare your wound to one who was wounded as 
none ever was wounded ; then, in your afflic- 
tion turn from all creature sympathy and 
succor, and look to Jesus ; to a kinder nature, 
to a tenderer bosom, to a deeper love, to a 
more powerful arm, to a more sympathizing 
friend, you could not take your trial, your 
affliction, and your sorrow. He is prepared 
to embosom himself in your deepest grief, 
and to make your circumstances all his own. 
So completely and personally is he one with 
you, that nothing can affect you that does not 
instantly touch him. Your temptations from 
Satan, your persecutions from man, the 
woundings of the saints, and the smitings of 
the watchmen, all fall upon him. " The re- 
proaches of them that reproached thee fell on 
me. 5 ' Tender to him are you as the apple of 
his eye. Your happiness, your reputation, 
your usefulness, your labors, your necessities, 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 129 

your discouragements, your despondencies, all 
pass beneath his slumbering notice, and are 
the objects of his tenderest love, and incessant 
care. If Jesus, then, is willing to come and 
make, as it were, his home in the very heart 
of your sorrow, surely you will not hesitate in 
repairing with your sorrow to his heart of love. 
And when heart and flesh are fast failing, 
and the trembling feet descend into the dark 
valley of the shadow of death, to whom shall 
we then look, but unto Jesus. The world is 
now receding and all creatures are fading 
upon the sight ; one object alone remains, 
arrests and fixes the believer's eye, — it is 
Jesus, the Saviour ; it is Immanuel, the In- 
carnate and now present God ; it is the Cap- 
tain of our salvation, the conqueror of death, 
and the spoiler of the grave ; it is our friend, 
our brother, our Joseph, our Joshua, loving 
and faithful, and present to the last. Jesus 
is there to confront death again, and vanquish 
him with his own weapons. Jesus is there to 
remind his departing one that the grave can 
wear no gloom and can boast of no victory, 



130 LOOKING- UETTO JESUS. 

since he himself passed through its portal, 
rose and revived and lives for evermore. Sick 
one ! in your languishing, look to Jesus ! 
Departing one! in your death struggles, look 
to Jesus ! Are you guilty ? Jesus is righteous. 
Are you a sinner ? Jesus is a Saviour. Are you 
fearful, and do you tremble? The Shepherd 
of the flock is with you, and no one shall 
pluck his sheep out of his hands. How fully, 
how suitably does the gospel now meet your 
case. In your bodily weakness and mental 
confusion, two truths are, perhaps, all that 
you can now dwell upon, — your sinfulness, 
and Christ's redemption, your emptiness and 
Christ's sufficiency. Enough! you need no 
more. God requires no more. In your felt 
weakness, in your conscious unworthiness, 
midst the swelling of the cold waters, raise 
your eye and fix it upon Jesus, and all will 
be well. Hear you not the words of your 
Saviour calling you from the bright world of 
glory to which he bids you come, — " Arise, 
my love, my fair one ! and come away." Let 
your trusting, joyful heart respond, — 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 131 

"Jesus ! my breath is failing ; lead me on 
Softly and gently, as my strength can bear ; 
Draw me to thee in closer union, 
And for eternal life thy child prepare. 
Let thy love shine upon my soul, and chase 
This mistiness and darkness quite away, 
Till faith discerns her holy resting-place 
Distinctly, in the perfect light of day. 
Roll me in snowy raiment; store my heart 
With precious jewels from thy treasury. 
This world is not my rest; let me depart, 
And let my ransomed soul return to thee. 
Well may I trust thee, who thyself hast given 
To gain for me the peace and bliss of heaven." 

Third, " Looking unto Jesus," for every- 
thing. A few words must express all that we 
would say upon this view of our subject. 
God has but one Treasurer, and the Church 
but one Treasury — the Lord Jesus. He has 
deposited all fulness exclusively in Christ, 
that we might, in all need, repair only to 
Christ. " Looking unto Jesus," for our stand- 
ing before God; "Looking unto Jesus," for 
the grace that upholds and preserves us unto 
eternal life; "Looking unto Jesus," for the 
supply of the Spirit that sanctifies the heart, 
and meets us for the heavenly glory; " Look- 
ing unto Jesus," for each day's need, for each 



132 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 

moment's support ; " Looking unto Jesus," for 
the eye that sees him, the faith that beholds 
the invisible ; in a word, " Looking unto 
Jesus," for everything. Thus has Grod sim- 
plified our life of faith in his dear Son. Sev- 
ering us from all other sources, alluring us 
away from all other dependencies, and wean- 
ing us from all self-confidence, he would shut 
us up to Christ alone, that Christ might be all 
and in all. " They shall look upon him whom 
they have pierced, and shall mourn." "Look 
unto me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye 
saved, for I am God, and there is none else." 

For the weakness of faith's eye remember 
that Christ has suitably provided. His care 
of, and his tenderness towards, those whose 
grace is limited, whose experience is feeble, 
whose knowledge is defective, whose faith is 
small, are exquisite. He has promised to 
" anoint the eye with eye-salve, that it may 
see," and that it may see more clearly. Re- 
pair to him, then, with your case, and seek 
the fresh application of this divine unguent. 
Be cautious of limiting the reality of your 



LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 133 

sight to the nearness or distinctness of the 
object. The most distant and dim view of 
Jesus by faith, is as real and saving as if that 
view were with the strength of an eagle's 
eye. A well-known example in Jewish, his- 
tory affords an apposite illustration : the 
wounded Israelite was simply commanded to 
look to the brazen serpent. Nothing was said 
of the clearness of his vision or the distinct- 
ness of his view ; no exception was made to 
the dimness of his sight. His eye might pos- 
sibly be blurred, the phantoms of a diseased 
imagination might float before it, intercepting 
his view ; nay, more, it might already be 
glazing and fixing in death! Yet, even under 
these circumstances, and at that moment, if 
he but obeyed the divine command, and looked 
towards, simply towards^ the elevated serpent, 
distant and beclouded as it was, he was im- 
mediately and effectually healed. Thus is it 
with the operation of faith. Let your eye, in 
obedience to the gospel's command, be but 
simply raised and fastened upon Jesus, far 
removed as may be the glorious object, and 
12 • 



134 LOOKING UKTO JESUS. 

dim as may be the blessed vision, yet thus 
' looking unto Jesus' you shall be fully and 
eternally saved. And soon — ! how soon — 
we shall see him unveiled, unclouded in glory. 
Until then, let us run the race set before us ; 
looking unto Jesus as the goal, which we soon 
shall reach, and as the prize which we shall 
forever possess. 

" Soon, and forever, 

The breaking of day 
Shall drive all the night-clouds 
Of sorrow away. 

" Soon, and forever, 

We'll see as we're seen, 

And learn the deep meaning 

Of things that have been. 

" When fightings without us, 
And fears from within, 
Shall weary no more 
In the warfare of sin. 

44 Where tears and where fears, 

And where death shall be — never. 
Christians with Christ shall be 
Soon, and forever. 

" Soon, and forever, 

The work shall be done, 
The warfare accomplished, 
The victory won. 



LOOKING UXTO JESUS. 135 



" Soon, and forever, 

The soldier lay down 
His sword for a harp. 

And his cross for a crown. 

" Then droop not in sorrow, 
Despond not in fear, 
A glorious to-morrow 
Is brightening and near ; 

"^hen, — blessed reward 

Of each faithful endeavor—" 
Christians with Christ shall be 
Soon, and forever" 



STwraing upon tjje iMattrtr. 



tt Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon 
her Beloved?" — Sono of Solomon, viii. 5. 



The path of the believer is an ascent, from 
a dark path and desolate world under the do- 
minion of sin and Satan, to a bright and glori- 
ous world, where Grod and holiness supremely 
and eternally reign. The first step which he 
takes in this heavenly journey is out of the 
wilderness of a wrecked and ruined nature, 
into the glories of a nature new and divine. 
Until this be uone, there cannot possibly be 
any right direction or real progress of the soul 
towards heaven. Years may be exhausted in 
the rigid performance of religious duties — sac- 
raments, fasts, charities, pilgrimages — but 
they count with Grod for nothing; they but fet- 
ter and impede, rather than free and propel the 
spirit in its holy and heavenly course. All these 



LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 137 

self-endeavors must cease ; all these human 
doings must be abandoned. Conversion, the 
conversion of which Jesus spake to Tsicodemus, 
is the severance of the sinner from himself, his 
divorcement from his wedded attachment to a 
broken law of works, a legal righteousness, 
and his simple escape to the refuge set before 
him in the (xospel. There is no turning of the 
face to the Saviour, until there is a turning of 
the back upon self. Iso man is in Christ, 
savingly and sensibly, until he is out of him- 
self, legally and meritoriously. No man will 
enfold himself with the righteousness which is 
of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
until, seeing the utter worthlessness of his 
own, he renounces it at once and forever. 
This single step taken, it becomes the first of 
a series, each one constituting a daily coming 
up out of self, conducting the believer nearer 
and nearer to perfect and endless glory. 

That the Christian's path should wind its 
way along an ascent, sometimes steep and per- 
ilous, always difficult and toilsome, should 
awaken no surprise and create no murmur. 
12* 



138 LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 

There is ever this great encouragement, this 
light upon his way, that it is a heaven-point- 
ing, a heaven-conducting, a heaven-terminat- 
ing path ; and ere long the weary pilgrim will 
reach its sunlit summit ; not to lie down and 
die there, as Moses did upon the top of Pisgah, 
but to commence a life of perfect purity and 
of eternal bliss. Turn your eye, dear reader, 
and rest it for a moment upon the beautiful 
picture which Solomon presents to your view 
in his inspired song. To what is the world 
compared ? a wilderness. "What object is seen 
in this wilderness? the church of God. What 
is she doing ? she is coming up from the wil- 
derness. What company is she in? the 
company of her Beloved. By what is she 
strengthened and upheld in her journey? she 
is leaning upon her Beloved. And what does 
the sacred painter describe as the effect of this 
spectacle ? it excites the admiration and 
astonishment of all who behold it, and they 
exclaim: — "Who is this that cometh up from 
the wilderness leaning upon the Beloved?" To 
one feature of this graphic description of the 



LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 139 

Church of God, let us turn our attention, viz 
the posture of the believer in -his ascent from 
the wilderness — leaning upon Jesus. 

The object of the believer's trust is Jesus, 
his Beloved. He is spoken of by the apostle 
as " the Beloved/' as though he would say, 
"There is but one beloved of God, of angels, 
of saints — it is Jesus."' He is the beloved 
One of the Father. " Behold my servant, 
whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul 
delighteth" " The only begotten Son, which 
is in the bosom of the Father" " This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." If 
Jesus is thus so dear to the Father, what then 
must be the turpitude of the sin of rejecting 
him! — a sin, let it be remembered, of which 
even Satan cannot be guilty. Yes ; he is the 
beloved of Grod ; and therefore, coming to God 
through him, it is impossible that a believing 
soul can be rejected. 

But he is also the church's beloved, the be- 
loved of each member of that church. Thus 
can each one exclaim, " This is my beloved, 
and this is my friend. He is ten thousand 



140 LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 

times more glorious to my view and precious 
to my soul, because he is mine. His person 
is beloved, uniting all the glories of the God- 
head with all the perfections of the manhood. 
His work is beloved, saving his people from tho 
entire guilt, and condemnation, and dominion 
of their sins. His commandments are beloved, 
because they are the dictates of his love to us, 
and the tests of our love to him." 0, yes! 
you have but one beloved of your heart, dear 
believer. He is " white and ruddy, the chief- 
est among ten thousand ;" he is all the universe 
to you ; heaven would be no heaven without 
him; and with his presence here, earth seems 
often like the opening portal of heaven. He 
loved you, he labored for you, he died for you, 
he rose for you, he lives and intercedes for 
you in glory ; and all that is lovely in him, 
and all that is grateful in you, constrain you 
to exclaim: — "I am my beloved's, and my be- 
loved is mine." Such is the company in which 
the believer is journeying through, and coming 
up from, the wilderness. Was ever a poor 
pilgrim more honored ? Was ever a lonely 



LEANING UPOX THE BELOVED. 141 

traveller in better company ? How can you 
be solitary or sorrowful, be in peril or suffer 
need, while you are journeying homewards 
in company with, and leaning upon, Jesus? 
But for what are you to lean upon your 
Beloved ? 

You are to lean upon Jesus for your entire 
salvation. He is '•' made of God unto you 
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and re- 
demption;" and for each one of these inesti- 
mable blessings, you are to depend daily upon 
Christ. Where can you lean for pardon but 
upon the atoning blood of Jesus? Where can 
you lean for acceptance, but upon the justify- 
ing righteousness of Jesus? And where can 
you lean for sanctification, but upon the sin-sub- 
duing grace of Jesus? This leaning upon the 
Beloved, then, is a daily coming up out of 
ourselves in the great matter of our salvation, 
and resting in the finished work of Christ, nay 
more, in Christ himself. We are to lean upon 
Jesus for a constant sense of pardon; to be 
coming perpetually to the blood of sprinkling, 
thus preserving the conscience clean and 



142 LEA.NTNG UPCXN" THE BELOVED. 

tender, and maintaining a filial, loving, and 
close walk with God. 

You are to lean upon the fulness of your 
Beloved. He is full to a sufficiency for all the 
wants of his people. There cannot possibly 
occur a circumstance in your history, there 
cannot arise a necessity in your case, in which 
you may not repair to the infinite fulness 
which the Father has laid up in Christ for his 
church in the wilderness. Why, then, seek 
in your poverty what can only be found in 
Christ's riches ? why look to your emptiness, 
when you may repair to his fulness? " My 
grace is sufficient for thee," is the cheering 
declaration with which Jesus meets every turn 
in your path, every crook in your lot, every 
want in your journey. Distrust, then, your 
own wisdom, look from your own self, and lean 
your entire weight upon the infinite fulness 
that is in Christ. 

The posture is expressive of conscious 
weakness, and deep self-distrust. Who is more 
feeble than a child of Grod ? Taught the lesson 
of his weakness in the region of his own heart, 



LEAXIXG UPON THE BELOVED. 113 

and still learning it in his stumblings and falls, 
and mistakes many and painful, in his self- 
inflicted wounds and dislocations, he is at 
length brought to feel that all his strength is out 
of himself, in another. He has the " sentence of 
death in himself, that he should not trust in him- 
self.*' " I am weak, yea, weakness itself," is his 
language, " I am as a reed, shaken of the wind ; 
I stumble at a feather; I tremble at an echo; 
I start at my own shadow; the smallest diffi- 
culty impedes me; the least temptation over- 
comes me. How shall I ever fight my way 
through this mighty host, and reach in safety 
the world of bliss ?" By leaning daily, hourly, 
moment by moment, upon your Beloved for 
strength. Christ is the power of God, and he 
is the power of the children of God. "Who 
can strengthen the weak hands, and confirm 
the feeble knees but Jesus? In them that have 
no might, he increaseth strength. "When they 
are weak in themselves, then are they strong 
in him. His declaration is: — "My strength 
is made perfect in weakness." It is illus- 
trated, it shines forth, and is exhibited in its 



144 LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 

perfection and glory in upholding, keeping, and 
succoring the weak of his flock. Lean, then, 
upon Jesus for strength. He has strength for 
all your weakness; he can strengthen your 
faith, and strengthen your hope, and strength- 
en your courage, and strengthen your patience, 
and strengthen your heart, for every burden, 
and for every trial, and for every temptation. 
Lean upon him ; he loves to feel the pressure 
of your arm ; he loves you to link your feeble- 
ness to his almightiness, to avail yourself of 
his grace. Thus leaning off yourself upon 
Christ, u as your day so shall your strength 
be." In all your tremblings and sinkings, you 
will feel the encircling of his power. " Tho 
eternal Grod is thy refuge, and underneath are 
the everlasting arms." 

And where would you lean in sorrow but 
upon the bosom of your Beloved ? If you lean 
upon his arm for support, it is equally your 
privilege to lean upon his heart for sympathy. 
Christ is as much your consolation, as he is 
your strength. His heart is a human heart, a 
sinless heart, a tender heart, a heart once the 



LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 145 

home of sorrow, once stricken with grief, once 
an aching, bleeding, mournful heart. 

Thus disciplined and trained, Jesus knows 
how to pity and to succor them that are sor- 
rowful and solitary. He loves to chase grief 
from the spirit, to bind up the broken heart, 
to staunch the bleeding wound, and to dry 
the weeping eye, to "comfort all that mourn." 
It is his delight to visit you in the dark night- 
season of your sorrow, and to come to you 
walking upon the tempestuous billows of your 
grief, breathing music and diffusing calmness 
over your scene of sadness and gloom. When 
other bosoms are closed to your sorrow, or are 
removed beyond your reach, or their deep 
throbbings of love are stilled in death, — when 
the fiery darts of Satan fly thick around you, 
and the 'world frowns, and the saints are cold, 
and your path is sad and desolate, and all 
stand aloof from your sore, — then lean upon 
the love, lean upon the grace, lean upon the 
faithfulness, lean upon the tender sympathy 
of Jesus. That bosom will always unveil to 
welcome you. It will ever be an asylum to 



146 LEAXIXG UPON" THE BELOVED. 

receive you, and a home to shelter you. 
Never will its love cool, nor its tenderness 
lessen, nor its sympathy be exhausted, nor its 
pulse of affection cease to beat. You may 
have grieved it a thousand times over, you 
may have pierced it through and through, 
again and again, — yet, returning to its death- 
less love, penitent and lowly, sorrowful and 
humble, you may lay within it your w r eeping, 
aching, languid head, depositing every burden, 
reposing every sorrow and breathing every 
sigh upon the heart of Jesus. Lord ! to 
whom shall I go ? yea, to whom would*! go, 
but unto thee ! 

This posture of faith is equally expressive 
of the advancement of the soul. The church 
was seen leaning, but not stationary. She 
was strengthened and upheld of her Lord, but 
she was going forward. She was leaning 
and walking, walking and leaning. The 
power she was deriving from Christ stimu- 
lated her greater progress. She gathered 
strength from her close dealing with her 
Lord, only to employ that strength in urging 



LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 147 

her upward, heavenward, homeward way. 
It was not the posture of indolence, in which 
individual responsibility was lost sight of in 
conscious weakness, and weakness was made 
an excuse for slothfulness and drowsiness of 
spirit. We lean truly upon Jesus that we 
may advance in all holiness, that the grace of 
the Spirit may be quickened and stimulated, 
that we may cultivate more heavenly- mind- 
edness, and be constantly coming up from the 
world, following him without the camp, bear- 
ing his reproach. ! what encouragement 
have we here to cultivate heavenly-minded- 
ness, since for the task, so difficult, yet so 
pleasing, we may lean upon the all-sufficiency 
of our Lord's grace. Let our movement, then, 
be an advance ; let our path be upward ; let 
us gather around us the trailing garment, 
casting away whatever impedes rather than 
accelerates our progress; and leaning upon 
our Beloved, hasten from all below, until we 
find ourselves actually reposing in the bosom 
upon which, in faith and love, in weakness 



148 LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 

and sorrow, we had rested amidst the trials 
and perils of the ascent. 

What more appropriate, what more soothing 
truth could we bring before you, suffering 
Christian, than this ? You are sick, — lean 
upon Jesus. His sick ones are peculiarly dear 
to his heart. You are dear to him. In all 
your pains and languisbings, faintings and las- 
situde, Jesus is with you ; for he created that 
frame, he remembers that it is but dust, and 
he bids you lean upon him, and leave your 
sickness and its issue entirely in his hands. 
You are oppressed, — lean upon Jesus. He 
will undertake your cause, and committing it 
thus into his hands, he will bring forth your 
righteousness as the light, and your judg- 
ment as the noonday. You are lonely, — lean 
upon Jesus. Sweet will be the communion, 
and close the fellowship which you may thus 
hold with him, your heart burning within you 
while he talks with you by the way. Is the 
ascent steep and difficult? lean upon your 
Beloved. Is the path straight and narrow? 
Veah upon your Beloved. Do intricacies, and 



LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 149 

perplexities, and trials weave your net-work 
around your feet ? lean upon your Beloved. 
Has death smitten down the strong arm, and 
chilled the tender heart, upon which you were 
wont to recline ? lean upon your Beloved. ! 
lean upon Jesus in every strait, in every want, 
in every sorrow, in every temptation. Noth- 
ing is too insignificant, nothing too mean to 
take to Christ. It is enough that you want 
Christ to warrant you in coming to Christ. 
No excuse need you make for repairing to 
him ; no apology will he require for the fre- 
quency of your approach ; he loves to have you 
quite near to him, to hear your voice, and to 
feel the confidence of your faith, and the pres- 
sure of your love. Ever remember that there 
is a place in the heart of Christ sacred to 
you, and which no one can fill but yourself, 
and from which none may dare exclude you. 
And when you are dying, ! lay your lan- 
guishing head upon the bosom of your Be- 
loved, and fear not the foe and dread not the 
passage, for his rod and staff they will com- 
fort you. On that bosom, the beloved disciple 
13* 



150 LEAXIXG UPON THE BELOVED. 

leaned at supper ; on that bosom the martyr 
Stephen laid his bleeding brow in death ; and 
on that bosom, you, too, beloved, may repose, 
living or dying, soothed, succored, and shel- 
tered by your Saviour and your Lord. 

" Jesus can make a dying bed 

Feel soft as downy pillows are, 
"While on his breast I lean my head, 

And breathe my soul out sweetly there." 

Thus leaning ever on Jesus, how sweet will be 
your song in the night of your pilgrimage. 
" Blessed be the Lord, because he hath heard 
the voice of my supplications. The Lord is 
my strength and my shield; my heart trusted 
in him, and I am helped ! therefore my 
keart greatly rejoiced, and with my song 
will I -praise him." 

" Holy Saviour, friend unseen, 
Since- on thine arm thou bidd'st me lean, 
Help me throughout life's varying scene, 

By faith to cling to thee ! 

" Blest with this fellowship divine, 
Take what thou wilt, I'll ne'er repine ; 
E'en as the branches to the vine, 

My soul would cling to thee. 



LEANING UPON THE BELOVED. 151 

I Far from her home, fatigued, oppress'd, 
Here she has found her place of rest ; 
An exile still, yet not unblest 

While she ean cling to thee. 

II Without a murmur, I dismiss 

My former dreams of earthly bliss : 
My joy, my consolation, this— 

Each hour to cling to thee 

" What though the world deceitful prove, 
And earthly friends and joys remove ; 
With patient, uncomplaining love, 

Still would I cling to thee. 

" Oft when I seem to tread alone 
Some barren waste with thorns o'ergrown, 
Thy voice of love in tenderest tone, 

Whispers, " Still cling to Ma * 

** Though faith and hope awhile be tried, 
I ask not, need not, aught beside ; 
How safe, how calm, how satisfied, 

The soul that clings to thee 

" They fear not Satan, or the grave, 
They feel thee near, and strong to save, 
Nor fear to cross e'en Jordan's wave, 

Because they cling to thee 

" Blest is my lot, whate'er befall ; 
What can disturb me, what appal, 
Whilst as my rock, my strength, my all, 
Jesus ! I cling to thee I* 



€jit Wtml iCjjtlt 



Purely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of 
his mother : mv soul is even as a weaned child." — Psalm cxxxi. 2. 



There are few lessons taught in God's 
school more difficult to learn, and yet, when 
really learned, more blessed and holy, than 
the lesson of weanedness. The heart resem- 
bles the vine, which, as it grows, grasps and 
unites its feeble tendrils to every support 
within its reach. Or, it is like the ivy, which 
climbs and wraps itself around some beautiful 
but decaved and crumbling ruin. As our 
social affections develop and expand, they 
naturally seek a resting-place. Travelling, 
as it were, beyond themselves, breathing love 
and yearning for friendship, they go forth 
seeking some kindred spirit, some " second 
self," upon which they may repose, and 
around which they may entwine. To detach 



THE WEAXED CHILD. 153 

from this inordinate, idolatrous clinging to 
the animate and the inanimate creatures and 
objects of sense, is one grand end of God's dis- 
ciplinary dealings with us in the present life. 
The discovery which we make, in the process 
of his dealings, of the insufficiency and inse- 
curity of the things upon which we set our 
affections, is often acutely painful. Like that 
vine, we find that we grasped a support at the 
root of which the canker-worm was secretly 
feeding, — and presently it fell ! Or, like that 
ivy, we discover that we have been spreading 
our affections around an object which, even 
while we clung to and adored it, was crum- 
bling and falling into dust, — and presently it 
became a ruin ! And what is the grand les- 
son which, by this process, Grod would teach 
us ? The lesson of ivea?iedness from all and 
everything of an earthly and a created na- 
ture. Thus was David instructed, and this 
was the result : " Surely I have behaved and 
quieted myself as a child that is weaned of 
his mother : my soul is even as a weaned 
child." It may be profitable, tried and suf- 



151 THE WEAXED CHILD. 



fering reader, briefly to contemplate this holy 
state, and then the way by which the Lord 
frequently brings his people into its experience. 
Every true believer, whatever may be the 
degree of his grace, is an adopted child of 
God. It is not the amount of his faith, nor 
the closeness of his resemblance to the family, 
that constitutes his relationship; it is the act 
of adoption by which his heavenly Father has 
made him his own. If he can only lisp his 
Father's name, or bears but a single feature 
of likeness to the Divine image, he is as 
much and as really a child of God as those 
in whose souls the lineaments are deeply and 
broadly drawn, and who, with an unfaltering 
faith, can cry, " Abba, Father !" Doubtless 
there were many of feeble faith, of limited 
experience and of defective knowledge — mere 
babes in Christ — in the church to which the 
apostle inscribed his letter ; and yet, address- 
ing them all, he says, " Behold, what manner 
of love* that we should be called the sons of 
God." But it is the character of the weaned 
child w T e are now to contemplate. All be- 



THE WEANED CHILD. 155 

lie vers are children, but are all believers 
weaned children ? From what is the child 
of Grod thus weaned ? 

The first object from which our heavenly 
Father weans his child, is — -himself. Of all 
idols, this he finds the hardest to abandon. 
When man in paradise aspired to be as God, 
Grod was dethroned from his soul, and the 
creature became as a deity to itself. From 
that moment, the idolatry of self has been the 
great and universal crime of our race, and 
will continue to be until Christ comes to re- 
store all things. In the soul of the regenerate, 
divine grace has done much to dethrone this 
idol, and to reinstate Grod. The work, how- 
ever, is but partially accomplished. The dis- 
honored and rejected rival is loath to relin- 
quish his throne, and yield to the supreme 
control and sway of another. There is much 
yet to be achieved before this still indwelling 
and unconquered foe lays down his weapons 
in entire subjection to the will and the author- 
ity of that Saviour whose throne and rights 
he has usurped. Thus, much still lingers in 



156 THE WEAXED CHILD. 

the heart which the Spirit has renewed and 
inhabits, of self-esteem, self-confidence, self, 
seeking, and self-love. From all this, our 
Father seeks to wean us. From our -own 
wisdom, which is but folly ; from our own 
strength, which is but weakness ; from our 
own wills, which are often as an uncurbed, 
steed ; from our own ways, which are crooked ; 
from our own hearts, which are deceitful ; 
from our own judgments, which are dark ; 
from our own ends, which are narrow and 
selfish, he would wean and detach us, that 
our souls may get more and more back to 
their original centre of repose — God himself. 
In view of this mournful exhibition of fallen 
and corrupt self, how necessary the discipline 
of our heavenly Father that extorts from us 
the Psalmist's language : " Surely I have be- 
haved and quieted myself as a child that is 
weaned of his mother." Self did seem to be 
our mother — the fruitful parent of so much 
in our plans and aims and spirit that was dis- 
honoring to our God. From this he would 
gefctJiy and tenderly, but effectually, wean us, 



THE VTEAXED CHILD. 157 

that we may learn to rely upon his wisdom, 
to repose in his strength, to consult his honor, 
and to seek his glory and smile supremely 
and alone. And how effectually is this 
blessed state attained when Grod, by setting 
us aside in the season of solitude and sorrow, 
teaches us that he can do without us. We, 
perhaps, thought that our rank, or our tal- 
ents, or our influence, or our very presence 
were essential to the advancement of his 
cause, and that some parts of it could not pro- 
ceed without us ! The Lord knew otherwise. 
And so he laid his hand upon us, and with- 
drew us from the scene of our labors, and 
duties, and engagements, and ambition, that 
he might hide pride from our hearts — the 
pride of self-importance. And 0, is it no 
mighty attainment in the Christian life to be 
thus weaned from ourselves ? Beloved, it 
forms the root of all other blessings. The mo- 
ment we learn to cease from ourselves — from 
our own wisdom, and power, and importance 
— the Lord appears and takes us up. Then 

his wisdom is displayed, and his power is put 
14 



158 THE WEANED CHILD. 

forth, and his glory is developed, and his 
great name gets to itself all the praise. It 
was not until God had placed Moses in the 
cleft of the rock that his glory passed by 
Moses must be hid, that God might be all. 

Our heavenly Father would also wean us 
from this poor, perishing world. In a pre- 
ceding chapter we touched upon the great 
snare which the world presented to the child 
of (rod. It is true Christ has taken him out 
of, and separated him from, the world; assailed 
by all its evils, and exposed to all its corrupt- 
ing influences. The intercessory prayer of 
our Lord seems to imply this : " They are not 
of the world, even as I am not of the world. 
I pray not that thou shouldst take them out 
of the world, but that thou shouldst keep 
them from the evil." And what an evil 
does the Christian find this world to be ! In 
consequence of the earthward tendency of 
his affections, and the deep carnality with 
which the mind is imbued, things which Grod 
designed as blessings to soothe and soften and 
cheer, become, by their absorbing and idola- 



THE WEANED CHILD. 159 

trous influence, powerful snares. Rank is a 
snare, wealth is a snare, talent is a snare, 
friendship is a snare. Rank may foster pride 
and ambition ; wealth may increase the thirst 
for worldly show ; talent may inspire a love 
of human applause ; and friendship may 
wean the heart from Christ, and betray us 
into a base and unholy compromise of Chris- 
tian profession. Xow from this endangering 
world our heavenly Father would shield, by 
withdrawing us. It is not our rest, and he 
agitates it ; it is not our portion, and he em- 
bitters it; it is not our friend, and he some- 
times arms it with a sword. It changes, it 
disappoints, it wounds ; and then, thankful to 
expand our wings, we take another and a 
bolder flight above it. Ah ! beloved, how 
truly may the Lord be now sickening thine 
heart to the world, to which that heart has 
too long and too closely clung. It has been 
thy peculiar snare ; thy Father saw it, and 
wisely and graciously laid his loving, gentle 
hand upon thee, and led thee away from it, 
that from a bed of sickness, or from a cham- 



160 THE WEANED CHILD. 

ber of grief, or from some position of painful 
vicissitude, thou mightest see its sinfulness, 
learn its hollowness, and return as a wan- 
derer to thy Father's bosom, exclaiming with 
David, " My soul is even as a weaned child." 
This weanedness, of which we speak, often 
involves the surrender of some endeared ob- 
ject of creature affection. The human heart 
is naturally idolatrous. Its affections, as we 
have previously remarked, once supremely 
centered in God. But now, disjoined from 
him, they go in quest of other objects of at- 
tachment, and we love and worship the crea- 
ture rather than the Creator. The circle 
which our affections traverse may not indeed 
be a large one ; there are perchance but few 
to whom we fully surrender our heart ; nay, 
so circumscribed may the circle be, that one 
object alone shall attract, absorb, and concen- 
trate in itself our entire and undivided love — 
that one object to us as a universe of beings, 
and all others comparatively indifferent and 
insipid. Who cannot see that in a case like 
this, the danger is imminent of transforming 



THE WE AXED CHILD. 161 

the heart — Christ's own sanctuary — into an 
idol's temple, where the creature is loved and 
reverenced and served more than he who gave 
it ? But from all idolatry our God will cleanse 
us, and from all our idols Christ will wean 
us. The Lord is jealous, with a holy jealousy, 
of our love. Poor as our affection is, he asks 
its supreme surrender. That he requires our 
love at the expense of all creature attach- 
ment, the Bible nowhere intimates. He 
created our affections, and he it is who pro- 
vides for their proper and pleasant indulgence. 
There is not a single precept or command in 
the Scriptures that forbids their exercise, or 
that discourages their intensity. Husbands 
are exhorted to "love their wives, even as 
Christ loved his church." Parents are to 
cherish a like affection towards their children, 
and children are bound to render back a filial 
love not less intense to their parents. And 
we are to " love our neighbors as ourselves." 
Nor does the word of God furnish examples 
of Christian friendship less interested and 
devoted. One of the choicest and tenderest 
14* 



162 THE WE AXED CHILD. 



blessings with which (rod can enrich us, next 
to himself, is such a friend as Paul had in 
Epaphroditus, a " brother and companion in 
labor, and fellow-soldier ;" and such an affec- 
tionate friendship as John, the loving disciple, 
cherished for his well beloved G-aius, whom 
he loved in the truth, and to whom, in the 
season of his sickness, he thus touchingly 
poured out his heart's affectionate sympathy : 
" Beloved, I wish above all things that thou 
may est prosper and be in health, even as thy 
soul prospereth." Count such a friend, and 
such friendship amongst God's sweetest and 
holiest bestowments. The blessings of which 
it may be to you the sanctifying channel, are 
immense. The tender sympathy — the jealous 
watchfulness — the confidential repose — the 
faithful admonition — above all, the interces- 
sory prayer, connected with Christian friend- 
ship, may be placed in the inventory of our 
most inestimable and precious blessings. It 
is not therefore the use, but the abuse, of our 
affections — not their legitimate exercise, but 
their idolatrous tendency — over which we 



THE WE AXED CHILI). 163 

have need to exercise the greatest vigilance. 
It is not our love to the creature against 
which Grod contends, but it is in not allowing 
our love to himself to subordinate all other 
love. We may love the creature, but we 
may not love the creature more than the 
Creator. When the Griver is lost sight of and 
forgotten in the gift, then comes the painful 
process of weaning! When the heart burns 
its incense before some human shrine, and the 
cloud as it ascends veils from the eye the 
beauty and the excellence of Jesus, — then 
comes the painful process of weaning! When 
the absorbing claims and the engrossing atten- 
tions of some loved one are placed in com- 
petition and are allowed to clash with the 
claims of Grod, and the attentions due from 
us personally to his cause and truth, — then 
comes the painful process of weaning ! When 
creature devotion deadens our heart to the 
Lord, lessens our interest in his cause, con- 
geals our zeal and love and liberality, de- 
taches us from the public means of grace, 
withdraws from the closet, and from the 



164 THE WEANED CHILD. 

Bible, and from the communion of the saints, 
thus superinducing leanness of soul, and rob- 
bing God of his glory, — then comes the pain- 
ful process of weaning ! Christ will be tha 
first in our affections — (rod will be supreme 
in our service — and his kingdom and right- 
eousness must take precedence of all other 
things. In this light, beloved, read the pres- 
ent mournful page in your history. The 
noble oak that stood so firm and stately at 
thy side, is smitten, — the tender and beauti- 
ful vine that wound itself around thee, is 
fallen, — the lowly and delicate flower that lay 
upon thy bosom, is withered — the olive 
branches that clustered around thy table, are 
removed — and the il strong staff is broken 
and the beautiful rod;" not because thy God 
did not love thee, but because he desired thine 
heart. He saw that heart ensnared and en- 
slaved by a too fond and idolatrous affection, 
— he saw his beauty eclipsed and himself 
rivalled by a faint and imperfect copy of his 
own image, and he breathed upon it, and it 
withered away ! " The day of the Lord of 



THE WE AXED CHILD. 165 

hosts shall bo upon all . . . pleasant pictures" 
"When an eminent artist, who had concen- 
trated all the powers of his genius upon a 
painting of our Lord celebrating the last sup- 
per, observed that the holy vessels arranged 
in the foreground were admired to the exclu- 
sion of the chief object of the picture, he 
seized his brush and dashed them from the 
canvass, and left the imago of Jesus standing 
in its own solitary and unrivalled beauty. 
Thus deals our God oftentimes with us. 
solemn words ! " The day of the Lord of 
hosts shall be upon all .... pleasant pic- 
tures," — all pictures that veil and eclipse the 
beauties of him who is the " brightness of 
the Father's glory, and the express image of 
his person," God will obliterate. 

Filial submission to God's will, is, per- 
haps, one of the most essential features in 
this holy state of weanedness of which we 
speak. " Surely I have behaved and quieted 
myself as a child that is weaned of his 
mother/' There are some beautiful examples 
of this in God's word. "And xlaron held his 



166 THE WEANED CHILD. 

peace." Since God was " sanctified and glo- 
rified," terrible as was the judgment, the holy 
priest mourned not at the way, nor complained 
of its severity, patient and resigned to the 
will of God. He " behaved and quieted him- 
self as a child that is weaned of his mother." 
Thus, too, was it with Eli, when passing 
under the heavy hand of God: "It is the 
Lord; let him do what seemeth him good." 
He bowed in deep submission to the will of 
his God. Job could exclaim, as the last sad 
tidings brimmed his cup of woe, " The Lord 
gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed 
be the name of the Lord." And David was 
"dumb and opened not his mouth, because 
God did it." But how do all these instances 
of filial and holy submission to the Divine 
will — beautiful and touching as they are — 
fade before the illustrious example of our 
adorable and blessed Lord: " my Father, if 
this cup may not pass away from me, except 
L drink it, thy will be done." Ah ! how did 
Jesus, in the deepest depth of his unutterable 
sorrow, "behave and quiet himself as a child 



THE WE AXED CHILD. 167 

that is weaned of his mother ? his soul was 
even as a weaned child." Such, beloved, be 
the posture of thy soul at this moment. "Be 
still." Rest in thy Father's hands, calm and 
tranquil, quiet and submissive, weaned from 
all but himself. the blessedness of so re- 
posing ! 

" Sweet to lie passive in his hands, 
And know no will but his." 

" God's love /" It is written upon your 
dark cloud — it breathes from the lips of your 
bleeding wound — it is reflected in every frag- 
ment of your ruined treasure — it is pencilled 
upon every leaf of your blighted flower — 
M God is love." Adversity may have impover- 
ished you — bereavement may have saddened 
you — calamity may have crushed you — sick- 
ness may have laid you low — but, "God is 
love." Gently falls the rod in its heaviest 
stroke — tenderly pierces the sword in its deep- 
est thrust — smilingly bends the cloud in its 
darkest hues — for, "God is love." Does the 
infant, weaned from its wonted and pleasant 
fount, cease from its restlessness and sorrow. 



168 THE WEANED CHILD. 

reposing calmly and meekly upon its mother's 
arms ?- — so let thy soul calmly, submissively 
rest in Grod. How sweet the music which 
then will breathe from thy lips in the midnight 
of grief: " Surely I have behaved and quieted 
myself as a child that is weaned of his moth- 
er: my soul is even as a weaned child." 

And who can bring you into this holy posi- 
tion? The Holy Spirit alone can. It is his 
office to lead you to Jesus — to reveal to you 
Jesus — to exhibit to your eye the cross of 
Jesus — to pour into your heart the grace and 
love and sympathy of Jesus — to bend your will 
and bow your heart to the government of 
Jesus, and thus make you as a weaned child. 
The work infinitely transcends a power merely 
human. It is the office and the prerogative 
of the Divine Spirit — the " Spirit of holi- 
ness" — who only can sever between flesh and 
spirit, to bring you into the condition of one 
whose will in all things is completely merged 
in Grod's. And what is his grand instrument 
of effecting this ? The cross of Christ ! Ah ! 
this is it. The cross of Christ! Not the 



THE WE AXED CHILD. 169 

cross as it appeared to the imagination of the 
Mahomedan Chief, leading the imperial army 
to battle and to conquest ; not the cross pic- 
tured — the cross engraved — the cross carved 
— the cross embroidered — the cross embossed 
upon the prayer-book, pendant from the maid- 
en's neck, glittering on the cathedral's spire, 
and springing from its altar : not the cross as 
blended with a religion of Grothic architecture, 
and painted windows, and flaming candles, 
and waving incense, and gorgeous pictures, 
and melting music, and fluttering surplices : 
no ! but the cross — the naked, rugged cross 
— which Calvary reared, which Paul preached, 
and of which he wrote, " Grod forbid that I 
should glory save in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, by which* the world is crucified 
unto me, and I unto the world." Faith, pic- 
turing to its view this cross, the Holy Spirit 
engraving it on the heart in spiritual regene- 
ration, the whole soul receiving him whom it 
lifts up, as its ." wisdom, and righteousness, 

* " Whereby." See versions of Tyndale, Cranmer, and 
Geneva, as collated in Bagster's English Efoxapla. 



170 THE WEANED CHILD. 

and sanctification, and redemption," gently 
and effectually transforms the spirit, that was 
chafened and restless, into the " meekness and 
gentleness of Christ." what calmness steals 
over his ruffled soul ! what peace flows 
into his troubled heart ! what sunshine 
bathes in its bright beams, his dark spirit, who 
from the scenes of his conflict and his sorrow, 
flees beneath the shadow and the shelter of the 
cross. The storm ceases — the deluge of his 
grief subsides — the Spirit, dove-like, brings 
the message of hope and love — the soul, tem- 
pest-tossed, rests on the green mount, and one 
unbounded spring clothes and encircles the 
landscape with its verdure and its beauty. 
Child, chastened by the Father's love, look to 
the cross of your crucified Saviour. And as 
you fix upon it your believing, ardent, adoring 
gaze, exclaim — 

" Wearily for me thou soughtest, 
On the cross my soul thou boughtest; 
Lose not all for which thou wroughtest." 

What is thy sorrow compared with Christ's ? 
What is thy grief gauged by the Lord's? 



THE WEANED CHILD. 171 

Thy Master has passed before thee, flinging 
the curse and the sin from thy path, paving it 
with promises, carpeting it with love, and 
fencing it around with the hedge of his divine 
perfections. Press onward, then, resisting thy 
foe resolutely, hearing thy cross patiently, 
drinking thy cup submissively, and learning, 
while sitting at the Saviour's feet, or leaning 
upon his bosom, to be like him, "meek and 
lowly in heart." Then, indeed, shall "I have 
behaved and quieted myself as a child that is 
weaned of his mother : my soul is even as a 
weaned child." 

" Quiet, Lord, my froward heart, 
Make me teachable and mild, 
Upright, simple, free from art; 
Make me as a weaned child. 
From distrust and envy free, 
Pleased with all that pleases Thee. 

" What Thou shalt to-day provide, 
Let me as a child receive ; 
What to-morrow may betide, 
Calmly to Thy wisdom leave. 
'Tis enough that Thou wilt care, 
Why should I the burden bear ? 

"As a little child relies 

On a care beyond its own ; 



172 THE WEANED CHILD. 



Knows he's neither strong nor wise — 
Fears to stir a step alone — 
Let me thus with Thee abide, 
As my Father, Guard, and Guide. 

" Thus preserved from Satan's wiles, 
Safe from dangers, free from fears, 
May I live upon thy smiles 

Till the promised hour appears ; 
"When the sons of God shall prove 
All their Father's boundless love," 



<0nfo, Cnmfnrttng ns a 3#ntjjw. 

u As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." 

Isa. lxvi. 13 

It would appear from the Bible, that all 
the relations and affections of our humanity 
were really impressions of the Divine. All 
doubt, indeed, as to the correctness of this 
idea would seem to be removed by the inspired 
history of man's creation. We read: " God 
created man in his own image, in the image 
of God created he him." The human soul, 
cast as it were in this Divine mould, comes 
forth imprinted and enstamped with the like- 
ness of Grod. There is the transfer of the 
Divine to the human. The creature starts 
into being, a reflection of its Creator. Marred 
by sin though this image is, yet not utterly 
effaced are the lines and traces of the sacred 
original. The temple is in ruin, but it is still 
15* 



174 GOD, COMFORTING 

a temple, and beauty lingers round it, and 
G-od re-enters it. The splendor of the crea- 
ture is spoiled, but it is still God's offspring, 
and he disowns not his child. Man is fallen, 
but God, looking down upon the spoiled and 
scattered parts of the ruined structure — like the 
strewn fragments of a broken mirror — beholds 
in each the dim and multiplied but real re- 
semblance of himself. Trace each feature of 
this resemblance. Is it the parental relation ? 
God is a Father. Is it the filial ? Christ is 
a Son. Is it the conjugal? Oar Maker is 
the Husband of his church, and ihe church is 
the Lamb's wife. And is not Christ described 
as a Friend and a Brother, and his church 
called by him his sister? Thus, then, would it 
appear that the different relations in which we 
stand each to the other, and the affections 
which these relations foster, have their coun- 
terpart in God ; — copies and impressions of a 
Divine original. 

But there is yet another relation still more 
tender and holy, which would seem to be 
equally a reflection of the Divine character; 



AS A MOTHER. 175 

we allude to the maternal. God represents 
himself as clothed with the attributes of a 
mother! " As one whom his mother com- 
forteth, so will I comfort you." In all the 
similitudes which we have employed in the 
preceding pages, illustrative of the Christian's 
consolation and support, is there any one that 
transcends, or that equals, this ? Would it 
not seem that in adopting this impressive 
figure, in appropriating to himself this endear- 
ing relation, with which he would express 
the great depth of his love and the exquisite 
character of his comforts, God had surpassed 
himself? Has he before reached a point of 
tenderness like this ? Could he have exceeded 
it? " As one whom his mother comforteth, 
so will I comfort you." Let us not obscure 
the beauty, or weaken the force of these 
words, by an extended exposition. A few 
thoughts will suffice. 

God's family is a sorrowing family. " I 
have chosen thee," he says, "in the furnace 
of affliction." " I will leave in the midst of 
thee a poor and an afflicted people." The his« 



176 GOD, COMFORTIKG 

tory of the church finds its fittest emblem in 
the burning yet unconsumed bush which Mo- 
ses saw. Man is "born to sorrow;" but the 
believer is " appointed thereunto." It would 
seem to be a condition inseparable from his 
high calling. If he is a " chosen vessel," it 
is, as we have just seen, in the " furnace of 
affliction." If he is an adopted child, " chas- 
tening" is the mark. If he is journeying to 
the heavenly kingdom, his path lies through 
" much tribulation." If he is a follower of 
Jesus, it is to " go unto him without the 
camp, bearing his reproach." But, if his suf- 
ferings abound, much more so do his consola- 
tions. To be comforted by God, and to be 
comforted as a mother comforts her child, 
may well reconcile us to any sorrow with 
which it may please our heavenly Father to 
invest us. 

God comforts his sorrowful ones with the 
characteristic love of a mother. That love is 
proverbial. No line can fathom it, no elo- 
quence can depict it, no poetry can paint it. 
Attempt, if you will, to impart brilliance to 



AS A MOTHER. 177 

the diamond, or perfume to the rose, but at- 
tempt not to describe a mother's love. Who 
created the relation, and who inspired its 
affection ? That God who comforts his peo- 
ple with a love like hers. And what is a 
mother's affection — fathomless and indescriba- 
ble as it is — but as a drop from the infinite 
ocean of God's love ! Did ever a mother love 
her offspring as God loves his ? Never! Did 
she ever peril her life for her child? She 
may. But God sacrificed his life for us. 
See the tenderness with which that mother 
alleviates the suffering, soothes the sorrow of 
her mourning one. So does God comfort his 
mourners. there is a tenderness and a 
delicacy of feeling in God's comforts which 
distances all expression. There is no harsh 
reproof — no unkind upbraiding — no unveiling 
of the circumstances of our calamity to the 
curious and unfeeling eye — no heartless expo- 
sure of our case to an ungodly and censorious 
world ; but with all the tender, delicate, and 
refined feeling of a mother, God, even our 
Father, comforts the sorrowful ones of his 



178 GOD, COMFORTING 

people. He comforts in all the varied and 
solitary griefs of their hearts. Ah! there 
may be secrets which we cannot confide even 
to a mother's love, sorrows which we cannot 
lay even upon a mother's heart, grief which 
cannot be reached even by a mother's tender- 
ness ; but God meets our case. To him, in 
prayer, we may uncover our entire hearts ; 
to his confidence we may entrust our pro- 
foundest secrets ; upon his love repose our 
most delicate sorrows ; to his ear confess onr 
deepest departures ; before his eye spread out 
our greatest sins. " As one whom his mother 
comforteth, so will I comfort you." 

God comforts the penitential sorrows of his 
backsliding children with a mother's change- 
less love. With our hearts c bent upon back- 
sliding,' how many, how aggravated, and how 
mournful are our departures from God ! But 
does he disown and disinherit us for this ? 
Nay, he still calls and receives us, and wel- 
comes our return as children. " Turn, 
backsliding children, saith the Lord." " Re- 
turn, ye backsliding children, and I will heal 



AS A MOTHER. 179 



your backsliding?." k> As one whom his 
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.'' 
Inextinguishable, undecaying, and deathless 
is a mother's love. " It may be autumn, yea, 
winter, with the woman ; but with the mother, 
as a mother, it is always spring." When has 
the door of her heart or her dwelling been 
closed and fastened against her wayward one ? 
He may have quitted the roof that sheltered 
his early years, and, tearing himself from the 
influences and the attractions of home, have 
become a wanderer upon life's troubled sea ; 
he may have made shipwreck of. character, of 
fortune, and of happiness, and become an out- 
cast of society, with the stamp of infamy and 
outlaw branded upon his brow, — yet, should 
he in his far-wandering come to himself, and 
his soul be humbled within him, and his 
heart burst with penitential grief, and, think- 
ing of his sin, his baseness and ingratitude, 
resolve to arise and go to his mother, and sue 
for forgiveness at her feet, think you that that 
mother could close her heart against her re- 
pentant child ? Impossible ! She would be 



180 GOD, COMFORTING 

the first, and, perhaps, the only one, who 
would extend to him a welcome, and proffer 
him a shelter. In the depth of her quench- 
less love, she would hail his return with glad- 
ness, forgetting all the bitterness of the past 
in the sweet joy of the present ; and whilst 
other eyes might look coldly, and other hearts 
might be suspicious, and other doors might be 
closed and barred, the bosom which nursed 
him in infancy, and the home which protected 
his earlier years, would expand to receive 
back the poor, downcast, penitent wanderer. 
And see how she comforts ! With what 
words of love she greets him ! with what ac- 
cents of tenderness she soothes him ! with 
what gentleness she chases the tear from his 
eye, and smooths his rugged brow, and has- 
tens to pour into his trembling heart the 
assurance of her free and full forgiveness. 
This is the figure to which God likens his 
love to his people. " As a man* whom his 
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." 
Acute is the penitential grief of that child 
* Thus it may be rendered from the original. 



AS A MOTHER. 181 



which has strayed from its heavenly Father. 
Deep and bitter the sorrow when he comes 
to himself, resolves, and exclaims, " I will 
arise and go to my Father." Many the trem- 
blings and doubts as to his reception. " "Will 
he receive back such a wanderer as I have 
been ? Will he take me once more to his 
love, speak kindly to me again, restore to me 
the joys of his salvation, give me the blessed 
assurance of his forgiveness, and once more 
admit me with his children to his table?" 
He will, indeed, weeping penitent! Yet 
again, listen yet again to his words, — "As 
one whom his mother comforteth, so will I 
comfort you." Is not this declaration well 
calculated to create the sweetest midnight 
harmony in the gloomy season of your con- 
trition and grief? Surely it is. In the valley 
of your humiliation there is open to you a 
" door of hope," and you may enter and " sing 
there as in the day of your youth, and as in 
the day when you came up out of the land 
of Egypt," and in the first love of your 
espousals, gave your heart to Christ. God 
16 



182 GOD, COMFORTING 

will comfort your present sorrow by the to- 
kens of his forgiving love. He invites, ho 
calls, he beseeches you to return to him. He 
is on the watch for you, he advances to meet 
you, he stretches out his hand to welcome 
you, he waits to be gracious, he yearns to 
clasp his penitential, weeping Ephraim to his 
heart. " When he was yet a great way off, 
his father saw him, and had compassion, and 
ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." 
Will a mother's love live on, warm and 
changeless, amid all the long years of her 
child's rebellion, forgetfulness and ingrati- 
tude ? Will she, when he returns, and gently 
knocks at her door, and trembling lifts the 
latch, and falls, weeping and confessing, upon 
the bosom he had pierced with so many keen 
sorrows, press him to a heart that never 
ceased to throb with an affection which no 
baseness could lessen, and which no dishonor 
could quench ? And will (rod our Father, 
who inspired that mother's love, who gave to 
it all its tenderness and intensity, and who 
made it not to change, turn his back upon a 



AS A MOTHER. 183 



poor, returning child, who in penitence and 
confession sought restoring, pardoning mercy 
at his feet? Impossible! utterly impossible ! 
The love of God to his people is a changeless, 
quenchless, undying love. No backslidings 
can lessen it, no ingratitude can impair it, 
no forgetfulness can extinguish it. A mother 
may forget, yea, has often forgotten, her 
child ; but God, never! " Can a woman for- 
get her sucking child, that she should, not 
have compassion on the son of her womb ? 
Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget 
thee." How touching, how impressive the 
figure ! It is a woman, — that woman is a 
mother, — that mother is a nursing mother, — 
and still she may forget and abandon her 
little one : " yet will I not forget thee," says 
your God and Father. Touching, heart-melt- 
ing, heart- winning truth! " Lord ! we come 
unto thee in Jesus' name ! We have sinned, 
we have gone astray like lost sheep, we have 
followed the devices of our own hearts, we 
have wandered after other lovers, we have 
wounded our peace, and have grieved thy 



184 GOD, COMFORTING 

Spirit : but, behold, we come unto thee, we 
fall down at thy feet, we dare not so much 
as look unto thee, we blush to lift up our 
faces, — receive us graciously, pardon us freely, 
so will we loathe ourselves, hate the sin thou 
dost pardon, and love and adore and serve the 
God that forgives and remembers it no more 
forever ! As one whom his mother comfort- 
eth, so do thou comfort us !" 

"Who can supply a mother's place? There is 
one, and only one, who can, and who promises 
that he will; it is the God who removed that 
mother. " As one whom his mother comfort- 
eth, so will I comfort you." "Acquaint now 
yourself with him, and be at peace." The 
fond, affectionate, confiding mother sleeps in 
the dust. The most beautiful light of thy 
home is extinguished. The sweetest voice 
that echoed through thy dwelling is silent. 
The kindest and brightest eye that beamed 
upon thee is closed in death. The author of 
thy being, the guide of thy youth, the confi- 
dant of thy bosom, the joy of thy heart is no 
more. Now let God enter and take her plaoe. 



AS A MOTHER. 185 



All that that mother was — a refuge in every 
sorrow, an arbiter in every difficulty, a coun- 
sellor in every perplexity, a soother in every 
grief, the centre that seemed to unite and en- 
dear all the other sweet relations and associ- 
ations of the domestic circle — Grod made her. 
She was but a dim reflection, an imperfect 
picture, a faint image of himself. All the 
loveliness, and all the grace, and all the wis- 
dom, and all the sweet affection which she 
possessed and exemplified, was but an emana- 
tion of God. Make him your mother now. 
Take your secrets to his confidence, take your 
embarrassment to his wisdom, take your sor- 
rows to his sympathy, take your temptation to 
his power, take your wants to his supply. ! 
acquaint yourself with him as invested with 
the holy character, and clothed with the en- 
dearing attributes of a mother. He will guide 
you, shield you, soothe you, provide for you, 
and comfort you, as that mother, upon whose 
picture — as it smiles mutely upon you from the 
wall — you gaze with swimming eyes, never 
could. In vain you breathe before it your 



186 GOD, COMFORTING 

complaints, exclaiming, " as one that mourn- 
eth for his mother" once so touchingly did, — 

" that those lips had language ! Life has pass'd 
With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
These lips are thine, — thy own sweet smile I see, 
The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; 
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, — 
* Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away !' " 

Go and breathe your sorrows into God's 
heart, and he will comfort you, oh ! with more 
than a mother's love. Blessed sorrow, if in 
the time of your bereavement, your grief, and 
your solitude, you are led to Jesus, making 
him your Saviour, your Friend, your Counsel- 
lor, and your Shield. Blessed loss, if it be 
compensated by a knowledge of God, if you 
find in him a Father now, to whom you will 
transfer your ardent affections, upon whom 
you will repose your bleeding heart, and in 
whom you will trust, as you have been wont 
to trust in that mother, — 

" Who has reached the shore, 
Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar." 

How sweet is the thought that Jesus once 



AS A MOTHER. 187 



felt the throbbings of a mother's bosom. And 
with what filial affection did he commit that 
mother to the care of the beloved disciple in 
the darkest hour of his woe. Acquainted with 
your loss, sympathizing with your sorrow, 
compassionating your loneliness, in all respects 
capable of entering into the circumstances of 
your case, he invites you to repair to him for 
comfort, the tender sanctifying comfort, which 
not even a mother could pour into your heart. 
He can guide your youth, he can solace the 
cares of your riper years, he can strengthen 
and soothe the weakness and sorrow of declin- 
ing age. But let your heart be true with him. 
Let faith be simple, childlike, unwavering. 
Cling to him as the infant clings to its 
mother. Look up to him as a child looks up 
to its parent. Love him, obey him, confide in 
him, serve him, live for him; and in all the 
unknown, untrod, unveiled future of your his- 
tory, a voice shall gently whisper in your ear : — 

" As ONE WHOM HIS MOTHER COMFORTETH, SO 
WILL I COMFORT YOU." 



188 GOD, COMFORTING AS A MOTHER. 

u Act but the infant's part, 
Give up to love thy willing heart ; 
No fondest parent's melting breast 
Yearns, like thy God's, to make thee blest: 
Taught its dear mother soon to know, 
The tenderest babe its love can show ; 
Bid thy base servile fear retire, 
This task no labor will require. 

"The sovereign Father, good and kind, 
Wants to behold his child resign'd ; 
"Wants but thy yielded heart — no^more — 
With his large gifts of grace to store : 
He to thy soul no anguish brings, 
From thy own stubborn will it springs. 
But crucify that cruel foe, 
Nor pain, nor care, thy heart shall know. 

" Shake from thy soul, o'erwhelmed, opprest, 
Th' encumbering load that galls thy rest, 
That wastes thy strength in bondage vain ; 
With courage break the enthralling chain. 
Let prayer exert its conquering power, 
Cry in the tempted, trembling hour — 
'My God, my Father, save thy son !' 
'Tis heard, and all thy fears are gone."* 



* From the German of Martin Luther. 



Stsns onltj. 



u And when they had lined up their eyes, they saw no man, save 
Jesus only." — Matt. xvii. 8. 



There were occasions in our Lord's won- 
drous history when the drapery of his humil- 
iation could but ini perfectly conceal the in- 
dwelling splendor of his Godhead. Profound 
as that humiliation was — and to fathom its 
depth, we must scale the infinite height from 
whence he stooped — it could not intercept all 
the rays of the shekinah which slumbered 
within. Here and there a beam would dart 
forth from beneath the enshrouding cloud, 
often overwhelming with its effulgence those 
upon whom its brightness fell. Such was 
one of those occasions, a single incident in 
which has suggested the subject of the pres- 
ent chapter. Our Lord was now transfigured 
— the unveiling of his glory overpowered the 



190 JESUS ONLY. 



three disciples who were with him in the 
Mount, who, when the bright cloud over- 
shadowed them, and they heard a voice out 
of the cloud which said, " This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye 
him," " fell on their face, and were sore 
afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, 
and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And 
when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw 
no man, save Jesus only" Blessed company 
in which now they found themselves alone ! 
Moses — the type of the Law — and Elias — 
the representative of the prophets — had passed 
away, and no one was left " save Jesus only." 
All their fears had subsided — for Jesus had 
calmed them. All their happiness was com- 
plete — for Jesus was with them. And is not 
this still the motto of every true believer — in 
the matter of his salvation — in the spiritual 
circumstances of his history — in the yearn- 
ings of his heart — in the hour of death — and 
amidst the solemn scenes of the final judg- 
ment — " Jesus only ?" Let us reflect awhile 
upon each of these particulars. 



JESUS ONLY. 191 



In the believers salvation, it is ^ Jesus 
only." The salvation of man is an embodi- 
ment of God himself. We will not merely 
say that it reveals his love, or that it reflects 
his wisdom, or that it displays his power, or 
that it unveils his holiness, — it does all this — ■ 
but much more. Salvation is not merely a 
demonstration of the divine perfections ; it is 
a demonstration of the Divine Being. The 
essence — the heart — the mind — the attributes 
— the character — the government of (rod, are 
all embarked, embodied, and exhibited in the 
salvation of man. It is a work so sur- 
passingly stupendous, glorious, and divine, 
we can account for its vast and unique char- 
acter, and its transcendent results, upon no 
other principle than its essential demonstra- 
tion of Deity — " God manifest in the flesh." 
To mix, then, anything extraneous with this 
great and finished work, to add to it aught of 
human device, would seem a crime of deepest 
dye — a sin, the pardon of which might well 
extend beyond the provision of its mercy. 
G-od has, at every point, with a jealous regard 



192 JESUS OKLY. 



for his own glory, exhibited and protected 
this great truth. Over the cross beneath 
which as a sinner I stand, — inscribed upon 
the portal of the refuge into which as a sin- 
ner I flee, — above the fountain within which 
as a sinner I bathe — upon every object on 
which as a sinner I believingly gaze, God has 
written one sentence — solemn, pregnant, and 
emphatic — " Jesus only." Let us briefly 
confirm and illustrate it. 

Jesus only could stoop to our low estate. 
He only could stand between justice and the 
criminal — the day's-man between God and 
us. He only had divinity enough, and merit 
enough, and holiness enough, and strength 
enough, and love enough, to undertake and 
perfect our redemption. None other could 
embark in the mighty enterprise of saving 
lost man but he. To no other hand but his 
did the Father from eternity commit his 
church — his peculiar treasure. To Jesus only 
could be entrusted the recovery and the keep- 
ing of this cabinet of precious jewels — jewels 
lost, and scattered, and hidden in the fall, yet 



JESUS ONLY. 193 



predestinated to a rescue and a glory great 
and endless as God's own being. Jesus only 
could bear our sin and sustain our curse, 
endure our penalty, cancel our debt, and 
reconcile us unto God. In his bosom only 
could the elements of our hell find a flame of 
love sufficient to extinguish them, and by his 
merit only could the glories of our heaven 
stand before our eye palpable and revealed. 
Jesus must wholly save, or the sinner must 
forever perish. Listen to the language of 
Peter, uttered when ' filled with the Holy 
Ghost,' and addressed with burning zeal to 
the Christ-rejecting, self-righteous Sanhedrim : 
" This is the stone which was set at naught 
of you builders, which is become the head of 
the corner. Neither is there salvation in any 
other: for there is none other name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must 
be saved." Thus, in the great and moment- 
ous matter of our salvation, Jesus must be 
all. He will admit no coadjutor, as he will 
allow no rival. The breach between God and 
man he will heal alone. The wine-press of 
17 



19-i JESUS OXLY. 



divine wrath lie will tread alone. The battle 
with the power of darkness he will fight 
alone. The bitter cup of Grethsemane he 
will drink alone. The rugged cross to Cal- 
vary he will bear alone. The last conflict 
with the power of hell he will sustain alone. 
The passage through the grave he will tread 
alone. Man's sin and sorrow, the 'sinner's 
curse and woe, he will endure singly and 
alone; ' of the people there shall be none with 
him.' 

"What majesty gathers around the work and 
conquest of Jesus, thus accomplished and 
achieved single-handed and alone ! What an 
impressive view does the fact present of the 
inconceivable mightiness of the work, and of 
the unparalleled almightiness of him who 
wrought it ! Salvation was a work distancing 
all created power. It could only be secured by 
a power essentially and absolutely divine. Jesus 
undertook the work alone, and alone he ac- 
complished it. What is the deduction, rigidly 
logical, and scripturally true ? Jesus is di- 
vine. Here is the key to the mystery of the 



JESUS ONLY. 195 



whole. Deity in alliance with, humanity — the 
deity supplying the merit, and the humanity 
the vehicle of atonement — singly and un- 
aided wrenched the prey from the destroyer, 
broke the chain of the captive, and brought 
salvation and glory within the reach of the 
vilest of Adam's race. And because the Son 
of Grod wrought the stupendous achievement 
alone, alone " he shall bear the glory." Not 
a note shall swell to the praise, not a monu- 
ment shall rise to the honor, not a beam shall 
irradiate the brow of another, from the work 
of our redemption. To Jesus only shall the 
anthem be sung, to Jesus only shall the honor 
be ascribed, to Jesus only shall the glory re- 
dound, Jesus only shall wear the crown. Hark ! 
how they chaunt his high praises in the heav- 
enly temple: "Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom 
and strength, and honor and glory, and bless- 
ing." yes, in heaven it is " Jesus only." 

It follows, then, from all this, that salvation 
is a finished work. Precious is this truth to 
the believer's heart. And yet, how much is it 



196 JESUS ONLY. 



practically overlooked. The judgment une- 
quivocally admits it, but the doubts and trem- 
blings which enslave and agitate the heart, 
and which, like ripples upon the surface, im- 
part an unevenness to the peaceful serenity 
of the Christian's life, too evidently betray the 
feeble hold which his faith has upon this truth. 
But the doctrine remains substantially and un- 
changeably the same. The obedience with 
which Jesus honored the law, the satisfaction 
with which he answered the claims of justice, 
formed the two cognate parts of that mighty 
and illustrious work, of which, when he bowed 
his head in death, he exclaimed, " It is fin- 
ished." Believer in Jesus ! remember all your 
confidence, all your hope, all your comfort 
flows from the finished work of your Saviour. 
" Jesus only." See that you unwittingly add 
nothing to the perfection of this work. You 
may be betrayed into this sin and this folly by 
looking within yourself rather than to the per- 
son of Jesus ; by attaching an importance too 
great to repentance and faith, and your own 
doings and strivings, rather than ceasing from 



JESUS ONLY. 197 



your own works altogether, and resting foi 
your peace and joy and hope, simply, entirely, 
and exclusively in the work of Jesus. Re- 
member, that whatever we unintentionally 
add to the finished work of Christ, mars the 
perfection and obscures the beauty of that 
work. " If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou 
hast polluted it." Nothing have we to do but, 
in our moral pollution and nakedness, to 
plunge beneath the fountain, and wrap our- 
selves within the robe of that Saviour's blood 
and righteousness who, when he expired on 
the tree, so completed our redemption, as to 
leave us nothing to do but to believe and be 
saved. "It is finished !" — words, pregnant 
of the deepest meaning ! words, rich of the 
richest consolation ! Salvation is finished ! 
" Jesus only." Look from fluctuating frames, 
and fitful feelings, and changing clouds, to 
" Jesus only." Look from sins and guilt, from 
emptiness and poverty, to " Jesus only." 

The veil of the temple is rent in twain, and 
you may pass into its holiest, and lay upon 
the altar the sacrifice of a broken and a con- 
17* 



198 JESUS ONLY. 



trite heart, which shall be accepted through 
him who " gave himself for us an offering 
and a sacrifice to Grod, for a sweet-smelling 
savor." "It is finished !" Let devils hear 
it, and tremble ! let sinners hear it, and be- 
lieve ! let saints hear it, and rejoice ! All is 
finished. " Then, Lord, I flee to thee, just 
as I am ! I have stayed away from thee too 
long, and i am nothing bettered, but rather 
grown worse.' Too exclusively have I looked 
at my unwotthiness, too absorbed have I been 
with my penury, too bitterly have I mourned 
having nothing to pay. Upon thy own finish- 
ed work I now cast myself. Save, Lord, and 
I shall be saved !" Before this stupendous 
truth, let all creature merit sink, let all 
human glory pale, let all man's boasting 
vanish, and Jesus be all in all. Perish forms 
and ceremonies — perish rites and rituals — 
perish creeds and churches — perish, utterly 
and forever perish, whatever would be a sub- 
stitute for the finished work of Jesus, what- 
ever would attempt to add to the finished 
work of Jesus, whatever would tend to neu- 



JESUS OXLY. 199 



tralize the finished work of Jesus, whatever 
would obscure with a cloud, or dim w T ith a 
vapor, the beauty, the lustre, and the glory of 
the finished work of Jesus ! It was " Jesus 
only" in the councils of eternity, — it was 
u Jesus only" in the everlasting covenant of 
grace. — it was " Jesus only" in the manger 
of Bethlehem. — it was ,; Jesus only" in the 
garden of (xethsemane. — it was " Jesus only 1 ' 
upon the cross of Calvary, — it was " Jesus 
only" in the tomb of Joseph, — it was " Jesus 
only*' who. M when he had by himself purged 
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the 
Majesty on high." And it shall be "Jesus 
only" — the joy of our hearts, the object of our 
glory, the theme of our song, the Beloved of 
our adoration, our service, and our praise, 
through the endless ages of eternity. stand 
fast in life and in death, by the finished work 
of Jesus. 



1 ' Tis finished P see the Victor rise, 
Shake off the grave, and claim the skies. 
Ye heavens, your doors wide open fling ; 
Ye angel-choirs, receive your King. 



200 JESUS (XNXY. 



" ' 'Tis finished F — but what mortal dare 
In the triumph hope to share ? 
Saviour, to thy cross I flee ; 
Say, ' 'Tis finished !' and for me. 

u ■ Then will I sing, The Cross ! The Cross V 
And count all other gain but loss : 
I'll sing the cross, and to thy tree 
Cling evermore, blessed Calvary." 

In the spiritual exercises of the believer's 
soul, still it is " Jesus only." In the corrod- 
ings of guilt upon the conscience, in the cloud 
which veils the reconciled countenance of 
God from the soul, whither are we to look, 
save to " Jesus only ?" In the mournful con- 
sciousness of our unfaithfulness to Grod, of 
our aggravated backslidings, repeated depart- 
ures, the allowed foils and defeats by which 
our enemies exult, and the saints hang their 
heads in sorrow, to whom are we to turn, 
but to "Jesus only?" In the cares, anx- 
ieties, and perplexities which troop around 
our path, in the consequent castings down 
of our soul, and the disquietude of our spirit 
within us, to whom shall we turn but to 
" Jesus only ?" In those deep and mysteri- 



JESUS ONLY. 201 

ous exercises of soul travail, which not al- 
ways the saints of (rod can fully under- 
stand — when we see a hand they cannot see, 
and when we hear a voice they cannot hear ; 
when we seem to tread a lone path, or tra- 
verse a sea where no fellow-voyager ever 
heaves in sight; the days of soul-exercise 
wearisome, and its nights long and dark — Oh ! 
to whom shall we then turn, save to " Jesus 
only ?" AYho can enter into all this, and un- 
derstand all this, and sympathize with all 
this, but Jesus ? To him alone, then, let us 
repair, with every sin, and with every burden, 
and with every temptation, and with every 
sorrow, and with every mental and spiritual 
exercise, thankful to be shut up exclusively 
to " Jesus only." 

And whom does the heart in its best mo- 
ments, and holiest affections, and intensest 
yearnings, supremely desire ? Still the answer 
is, " Jesus only." Having by his Spirit en- 
throned himself there, having won the affec- 
tions by the power of his love and the at- 
tractions of his beauty, the breathing of the 



202 JESUS ONLY. 



is, " Whom have I in heaven but 
thee, and who is there on earth that I desire 
beside thee ?" Blessed is that soul the utter- 
ances of whose heart are the sincere and fer- 
vent expression of a love of which Christ is 
the one and supreme object. to love him 
more ! "Worthy, most worthy is he, of our 
first and best affections. Angels love him 
ardently and supremely; how much, more 
should we who owe to him a deeper debt of 
love than they ; for whom he has done infi- 
nitely more than for angels Would tha*t this 
might be our motto, our principle, our life, — 
" To me to live is Christ " Let the love of 
Christ, then, constrain us to love him in re- 
turn with an affection which shall evince, by 
the singleness of its object and the unreserved 
surrender of its obedience, that he who reigns 
the sovereign Lord of our affections is — 
" Jesus only." 

And when the time draws near that we 
must depart out of this world, and go unto 
the Father, one object will fix the eye from 
which all others are then receding, it is — 



JESUS ONLY. 203 



"Jesus only. 5 ' Ah! to die, actually to die, 
must be a crisis of our being quite different 
from reading of death in a book, or from hear- 
ing of it in the pulpit, or from talking of it 
by the wayside. The world fading in the 
view — life congealing at its fount — the brain 
swimming — the eye fixing — and yet conscious 
that in a few hours, or moments, the soul will 
take the tremendous leap, and bound away to 
a world unknown ; rushing through suns and 
systems and scenes all new and strange and 
wondrous — it is a solemn, an appalling 
thing to die ! But to the believer in Jesus, 
how pleasant and how glorious! "Absent 
from the body/' he is " present with the 
Lerd." Jesus is with him then. The blood 
of Jesus is there, cleansing him from all his 
guilt ; the arms of Jesus are there, supporting 
him in all his weakness ; the Spirit of Jesus 
is there, comforting him in all his fears: and 
now is he learning, for the last time on earth, 
that as for all the sins, all the perils, all the 
trials, and all the sorrows of life, so now as 
that life is ebbing fast away, and death is 



204 JESUS OXLY. 



chilling, and the grave is opening, and eter- 
nity is nearing, " Jesus only" is all-sufficient 
for his soul. 

And when the trumpet of the archangel 
sounds — waxing louder and louder — and the 
dead in Christ arise, and ascend to meet their 
Saviour and their Judge, as he comes, in 
majesty and great glory, to receive his Bride 
to himself, — then, then, will every heart, 
and every thought, and every eye, of that 
ransomed church, be fixed and fastened and 
centred upon one glorious object — " Jesus 
only." Believer! look # to him — lean upon 
him — cleave to him — labor for him — suffer 
for him — and, if need be, die for him. Thus 
loving and trusting, living and dying for— 
" Jesus only." 

" Why should I fear the darkest hour, 
Or tremble at the trumpet's power ? 
Jesus vouchsafes to be my tower. 

" Though hot the fight, why quit the field, 
Why must I either flee or yield, 
Since Jesus is my mighty shield ? 

" When creature comforts fade and die, 
Worldlings may weep, but why should I ? 
Jesus still lives and still is nigh. 



JESUS OKLY. 205 



" Though all the flocks and herds were dead, 
My soul a famine need not dread, 
For Jesus is my living bread. 

■ I know not what may soon betide, 
Xor how my wants may be supplied ; 
But Jesus knows, and will provide. 

" Though sin would fill me with distress, 
The throne of grace I dare address, 
For Jesus is my righteousness. 

41 Though faint my prayers and cold my iovij, 
My steadfast hope shall not remove, 
While Jesus intercedes above. 

Against me earth and hell combine, 
But on my side is power divine ; 
Jesus is all, and He is mine." 

18 



i|f Snrrnst nf frnijtr. 

" Let my prayer be set before thee as incense."— Psalm cxli. 2. 

(xod has a temple out of heaven. Not all 
the worship, nor all the worshippers, are con- 
fined to that blissful world where he imme- 
diately dwells. He has another sanctuary 
upon earth — other worshippers and other ser- 
vices, where, with whom, and with which, 
the beams of his presence are as strictly 
promised and as truly shine as in the general 
assembly of the church gathered around him 
in glory. It is not the magnificent structure 
made with hands, with its splendid ritual and 
its ponderous ceremonial, flattering to the 
pride and captivating to the sense of man, but 
a temple, and a temple-service far more beau- 
tiful in (rod's eye is that of which we speak. 
" Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my 
throne, and the earth is my footstool: where 



THE INCENSE OF PRAYER. 207 

is the house that ye build unto me? and 
where is the place of my rest? For all these 
things hath mine hand made, and all these 
things have been, saith the Lord : but to this 
man will I look, even to him that is poor and 
of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my 
word." " Thus saith the high and lofty One 
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, 
I dwell in the high and holy place, with him 
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to 
revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive 
the heart of the contrite one." This is God's 
temple upon earth, this his worshipper, and 
this his worship. The material structure is 
nothing, — the magnificent service is nothing, 
•—the formal worshipper is nothing ; u but to 
this man will I look, even to him that is poor 
and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at 
my word." most solemn truth ! most 
precious words ! " Lord ! engrave them upon 
my heart by thy blessed Spirit. Be my body 
thy temple — my heart thy sanctuary — thy 
presence my life — my life thy service." 

The believer in Jesus is a royal priest, or- 



208 THE INCENSE OF PEAYEE. 

dained to offer up spiritual sacrifices to Grod. 
He is called and consecrated, clothed and 
anointed, to a high and holy service. His 
calling is divine — his consecration is holy — his 
clothing is costly — his anointing is fragrant. 
Before the standing and the glory and the ser- 
vice of one of the royal priesthood, all the 
pomp and gorgeousness of Aaron's priesthood 
fade into nothing. Called according to Grod's 
purpose, consecrated and set apart by sove- 
reign grace, invested with the righteousness 
of Christ, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and 
offering up the spiritual sacrifice of a " broken 
and a contrite heart," — is it surprising that 
Grod should look with an eye of ineffable de- 
light upon such a worshipper ? But of a sin- 
gle one only of these many interesting points 
must we allow ourselves at present to speak. 
We refer to the incense which every true be- 
liever in Jesus, in his character of a royal 
priest, offers to the Lord. The subject pre- 
sents the Christian to our view in his holiest 
and most solemn feature — drawing near to 
Grod, and presenting before the altar of his 



THE INCENSE OF PKAYEK. 209 

grace the incense of prayer. The typical 
reference to this is strikingly beautiful. " Thou 
shalt make an altar to burn incense upon. . . . 
And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense 
every morning; when he dresseth the lamps he 
shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron 
lighteth the lamps at even he shall burn in- 
cense upon it, a perpetual incense before the 
Lord throughout your generations."' That 
this incense was typical of prayer would ap- 
pear from Luke i. 10: "And the whole mul- 
titude of the people were praying' without at 
the time of incense" And David, though dwell- 
ing in the more shadowy age of the church, 
thus correctly and beautifully interprets this 
type. " Let my prayer be set before thee as 
incense" It is an appropriate and an impres- 
sive figure. And thankful, dear reader, should 
we be to avail ourselves of whatever in the 
divine Word tends to teach us the nature, to 
illustrate the blessedness, to deepen the solem- 
nity, and to engage our hearts in the holy 
duty and sweet privilege of — prayer. Inter- 
esting and important as are the topics upon 
18* 



210 THE INCENSE OF PRAYER. 

which we have previously addressed you, all 
must yield to the interest and importance of 
this one. Prayer is the vital breath of the 
living soul; prayer is the mode of our ap- 
proach to Grod ; prayer is the appointed chan- 
nel of all blessing. The season contemplated 
throughout this little volume is especially the 
season in which prayer is found the most 
soothing and sanctifying. All the precious 
blessings which we have endeavored to bring 
before your sorrowful heart, as calculated to 
comfort and heal it, are conveyed to you 
through this one mode — communion ivith God. 
Once we can persuade you to pour out your 
heart to him — thus severing you from all other 
resources of comfort, and shutting you up ex- 
clusively to prayer ; in other words, shutting 
you up exclusively to God, — we feel that we 
have conducted you through the surges of 
your grief to the rock that is higher than you 
May the Eternal Spirit be our teacher and oui 
Comforter while briefly we speak of the in- 
cense OF PRAYER. 

The believer's censer — what is it? From 



THE INCENSE OF PEAYEE. 211 

whence arises the incense of prayer ascending 
to the throne of the Eternal ? it is the 
heart. The believer's renewed, sanctified 
heart is the censer from whence the fragrant 
cloud ascends. Ah, believer ! there are false, 
there are spurious censers waved before the 
throne of grace. There is no precious incense 
in them — no fire, no cloud. God smells no 
sweet savor in their offering. True prayer is 
the incense of a heart broken for sin, humbled 
for its iniquity, mourning over its plague, and 
touched and healed and comforted with the 
atoning blood of God's great sacrifice. This 
is the true censer; this it is at which God 
looks. May we not quote his words again, so 
expressive, so solemn, so precious are they? 

" To THIS MAN WILL I LOOK, EVEN TO HIM 
THAT IS POOR AND OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT, AND 
THAT TREMBLETH AT MY WORD.'' This IS God ? S 

own chosen censer. This, and this only, will 
he regard. ! who can describe the worth, 
the beauty, and the acceptableness of this 
censer to him whose ;; eyes move to and fro 
throughout the whole earth, to show himself 



212 THE INCENSE OF PEAYER, 

strong in the behalf of them whose heart is 
perfect towards him." To this G-od looks. 
" For the Lord seeth not as man seeth : for 
man looketh on the outward appearance, but 
the Lord looketh on the heart/'' (1 Sam. 
xvi. 7.) Precious censer ! moulded, fashioned, 
beautified, by Grod. There exists not upon 
earth a more vile and unlovely thing, in the 
self-searching view of the true believer, than 
his own heart. From every other human 
eye that bosom is deeply, impenetrably veiled. 
All that is within is known only to itself. 
What those chambers of abominations are God 
will not permit another creature to know. But 
0, how dark, how loathsome, how unholy to 
him " who knows the plague of his own 
heart." And yet, — wondrous grace ! — God, 
by his renewing Spirit, has made of that 
heart a beautiful, costly, and precious censer, 
the cloud of whose incense ascends and fills all 
heaven with its fragrance. With all its in- 
dwelling evil and self-loathing, Grod sees its 
struggles, watches its conflict, and marks its 
sincerity. He has his finger upon its pulse,— 



THE INCENSE OF PRAYER. 213 

he feels every beat, records every throb. Not 
a feeling thrills it, not an emotion agitates it, 
not a sorrow shades it, not a sin wounds it, 
not a thought passes through it, of which he 
is not cognizant. Believer! Jesus loves that 
heart of thine. He purchased it with his own 
heart's blood, agonies, and tears, — and he loves 
it. He inhabits it by his Spirit, — and he 
loves it. It is his temple, his home, his censer, 
and never can it approach hirn in prayer but 
he is prepared to accept both the censer and 
incense with a complacency and delight which 
finds its best expression in the language of his 
own word: "I will accept you with your sweet 
savor." 

And what is the incense pouring forth like 
a cloud from this precious censer ? 0, it is 
the incense of prayer ! The most precious 
and fragrant incense that ever rose to heaven 
from a mere human heart. How shall we 
describe the costliness of this incense ? Its 
materials, like those which Aaron cast into 
the censer, which the priests burned before 
the Lord, the offering of which was termed 



214 THE INCENSE OF PRAYER. 

the " incense of spices," ' are most costly. 
They are divine materials cast into it by God 
himself ; the heart's conviction of sin — its 
sense of self-loathing — its sweet contrition — 
its holy sorrow — its sincere repentance — its 
ingenuous confession — its full, free, and un- 
reserved pouring out of itself before God, the 
Holy Spirit created. And that must in very 
deed be costly of which the Holy Spirit of 
Grod is the author. And what shall we say 
of the fragrance of this incense ? how- 
much have we yet to learn of the intrinsic 
sweetness of real prayer. We can but im- 
perfectly conceive the fragrance there must 
be to Grod in the breathing of the Divine Spirit 
in the heart of a poor sinner. It is perhaps 
but a groan — a sigh — a tear — a look — but it 
is the utterance of the heart, and God can 
hear the voice of our weeping, and interpret 
the language of our desires, when the lips 
utter not a word ; so fragrant to him is the 
incense of prayer. And when prayer arises 
from a heart touched by the Spirit of adop- 
tion, and is the breathing of a child's love 



THE IXCEXSE OF PRAYER. 215 

and confidence and strong desire, in the 
bosom of God, how rich the incense then ! 
And is the incense of a praying heart borne 
down by grief, smitten, and withered like 
grass, less fragrant to God? No, mourning 
Christian, prayer is God's appointed and sur- 
est relief for your sad heart. Give but your- 
self unto prayer, now in the hour of your 
sorrow and loneliness, and your breathings 
sent up to heaven in tremulous accents, shall 
return into your own disconsolate and deso- 
late heart, all rich and redolent of heav- 
en's sweet consolations. The holy breathings 
which ascend from a believer's heart, gather 
and accumulate in the upper skies, and when 
most he needs the refreshing, they descend 
again in covenant blessing upon his soul. No 
real, believing prayer is ever lost, even as the 
moisture exhaled from earth is never lost. 
That thin, almost invisible vapor, which the 
morning's sun has caught up, returns again, 
distilling in gentle dews, or falling in plenti- 
ful rain, watering the earth and making it to 
bring forth and bud. That feeble desire, that 



216 THE INCEXSE OF PRAYER. 

faint breathing of the soal after God, and 
Jesus, and holiness, and heaven, shall never 
perish. It was, perhaps, so weak and trem- 
ulous, so mixed with grief and sorrow, so bur- 
dened with complaint and sin, that you could 
scarcely discern it to be real prayer ; and yet, 
beloved, ascending from a heart inhabited by 
God's Holy Spirit, and touched by God's love, 
it rose like the incense cloud before the throne 
of the Eternal, and blended with the fragrance 
of heaven. Around that throne those prayers 
are gathering, like clustering angels, and al- 
though the vision may tarry, yet, waiting in 
humble faith God's time, those prayers will 
come back again freighted with the richest 
blessings of the everlasting covenant, " even 
the sure mercies of David." God will grant 
you the desires of your heart. Jesus will 
manifest himself to your soul. To nothing 
has our Heavenly Father more strongly and 
solemnly pledged himself than to the answer- 
ing of the prayer of faith. " Thou shalt call, 
and I will answer" 

But there is yet one aspect of our subject 



THE INCENSE OF PEAYER. 217 

indescribably glorious, unspeakably precious. 
From whence does the incense of prayer de- 
rive its true fragrance, power, and acceptance 
with God ? Ah ! beloved, the answer is near 
at hand. From whence, but from the incense 
of our Great High Priest's atoning merit 
offered upon earth, and by ceaseless interces- 
sion, presented in heaven. The opening of 
the seventh seal, in the apocalyptic vision, re- 
vealed this glorious truth to the wondering 
eye of the evangelist. " And another angel 
came and stood at the altar, having a golden 
censer ; and there was given unto him much 
incense, that he should offer it with the pray- 
ers of all saints upon the golden altar which 
was before the throne. And the smoke of the 
incense which came with the prayers of the 
saints, ascended up before God out of the an- 
gel's hand." (Rev. viii. 3, 4.) 

This angel is none other than the Angel of 
the covenant, Jesus, our Great High Priest 
who stands before the golden altar in heaven, 
presenting the sweet incense of his divine 
merits and sacrificial death ; the cloud of 
10 



218 THE INCEXSE OF PRAYER. 

which ascends before God ' with the prayers 
of the saints.' it is the merit of our Im- 
manuel, " who gave himself for us an offer- 
ing and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smell- 
ing savor" that imparts virtue, prevalence, 
and acceptableness to the incense of prayer 
ascending from the heart of the child of God. 
Each petition — each desire — each groan — 
each sigh — each glance — comes up before 
God with the ' smoke of the incense' which 
ascends from the cross of Jesus, and from the 
" golden altar which is before the throne." 
All the imperfection and impurity which 
mingles with our devotions here, is separated 
from each petition by the atonement of our 
Mediator, who presents that petition as sweet 
incense to God. See your Great High Priest 
before the throne ! See him waving the 
golden censer to and fro ! See how the cloud 
of incense rises and envelops the throne ! 
See how heaven is filled with its fragrance 
and its glory ! Believer in Jesus, upon the 
heart of that officiating High Priest your 
name is written ; in the smoke of the incense 



THE IXCEXSE OF PBAYEE. 219 



which has gone up from that waving censer, 
your prayers are presented. Jesus' blood 
cleanses them — ImrnanuePs merit perfumes 
them — and our glorious High Priest thus 
presents both our person and our sacrifice to 
his Father and our Father, to his God and 
our God. wonderful encouragement to 
prayer! "Who, with such an assurance that 
his weak, broken, and denied, but sincere 
petitions shall find acceptance with Grod. 
would not breathe them at the throne of 
grace. Go, in the name of Jesus ; go, cast- 
ing yourself upon the merit which fills heaven 
with its fragrance; go, and pour out your 
grief, unveil your sorrow, confess your sin, 
sue out your pardon, make known your wants 
with your eye of faith upon the Angel who 
stands at the " golden altar which is before 
the throne," and the incense which breathes 
from your oppressed and stricken heart will 
11 ascend up before m God out of the angel's 
hand," as a cloud, rich, fragrant, and ac- 
cepted. O give yourself to prayer ! Say not 
that vour censer has nothing to offer. That 



220 THE INCENSE OF PRAYER. 

it contains no sweet spices, no fire, no incense. 
Repair with it, all empty and cold as it is, to 
the great High Priest, and as you gaze in 
faith upon him who is the Altar, the slain 
Lamb, and the Priest, thus musing upon this 
wondrous spectacle of Jesus' sacrifice for you, 
his Spirit will cast the sweet spices of grace, 
and the glowing embers of love into your dull, 
cold heart, and there will come forth a cloud 
of precious incense which shall ascend . with 
the l much incense' of the Saviour's merits, 
an " offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet- 
smelling savor." Remember, that Jesus 
offers with the " much incense" the prayer of 
" all saints." In that number you, beloved, 
are included. The tried saints — the sick 
saints — the sorrowful saints — the tempted 
saints — the bereaved saints — the weak and 
infirm saints — the wandering and restored 
saints. Yea, " the prayers of all saints," are 
" offered upon the golden altar which is before 
the throne." Nor forget that there is evening' 
as well as morning incense. " When Aaron 
lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn in- 



THE INCENSE OF PEAYEE. 221 



your prosperity and joy is past, and the even- 
ing of adversity, sorrow, and loneliness draws 
its sombre curtains around you, then take 
your censer and wave it before the Lord. 
Ah ! methinks at that hour of solemn still- 
ness, and of mournful solitude, — that hour 
when grief loves to indulge, and visions of 
other days dance before the eye, like shadows 
upon the wall, — that hour when all human 
succor and sympathy fails — that then the 
sweetest incense of prayer ascends before 
God. Yes, there is no prayer so true, so pow- 
erful, so fragrant as that which sorrow presses 
from the heart. betake yourself, suffering 
believer, to prayer. 

"Art thou a pilgrim, and alone ? 
Far from the home once called thine own ? 
From friendship's faithful bosom wrested, 
In stranger hands thy comforts vested ; 
Thy life a cheerless wintry day, 
Unlit by sunshine ! — Eise and pray ! 

■ Smiled on thee once the bliss of earth, 
And flittering joys of transient worth ? 
Hast thou adored some idol shrine. 
Or bent how many a knee at thine \ 

19* 



222 THE INCENSE OF PRAYER. 

Faded those creatures of a day, 

What hast thou left ? — Arise and pray ! 

" With tears, with bitterest agony, 
The Saviour wrestled, Soul ! for thee, 
Ere he could all-triumphant rise 
To plead the accepted sacrifice: 
So, till the world shall pass away, 
Shall stand his words — ' Arise and pray ! ' " 

Bring forth, then, your censer, sorrowful 
priest of the Lord ! Replenish it at the altar 
of Calvary, and then wave it with a strong 
hand before Grod, until your person, your sor- 
rows, and your guilt are all enveloped and 
lost in the cloud of sweet incense as it rises 
before the throne, and blends with the ascend- 
ing cloud of the Redeemer's precious interces- 
sion. Prayer will soothe you — prayer will 
calm you — prayer will unburden your heart 
— prayer will remove or mitigate your pain — 
prayer will heal your sickness, or make your 
sickness pleasant to bear — prayer will expel 
the tempter — prayer will bring Jesus sensibly 
near to your soul — prayer will lift your heart 
to heaven, and will bring heaven down into 
your heart. "Lord, I cry unto thee: make 
haste unto me : give ear unto my voice when 



THE INCENSE OF PRAYER. 228 

I cry unto thee. Let my prayer be set forth 
before thee as incense ; and the lifting up of 
my hands as the evening sacrifice." " I give 



1 The prayers I make -will then be sweet indeed 
It thou the Spirit give by which I pray : 
My unassisted heart is barren clay, 
That of its native self can nothing feed : 
Of good and pious works Thou art the seed 
That quickens only where thou sayest it may : 
Unless thou show to us thine own true way, 
No man can find it : Father ! thou mayest lead. 
Do Thou then breathe those thoughts into my mind 
By which such virtue may in me be bred, 
That in thy holy footsteps I may tread ; 
The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind, 
That I may have the power to sing of Thee, 
And sound thy praises everlastingly.'* 



* Wordsworth 



€\t Biitf Urculthtg. 

H Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the 
mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense." — Song Sol. iv. 6. 

It is proper that we should now conduct 
our ' night thoughts' to a close. And with 
what topic more soothing and appropriate can 
we terminate our present reflections than the 
one suggested by the portion of the sweet song 
just quoted — the arrival of that blessed period 
when the shadows of our present pilgrimage 
will all have fled, succeeded by a " morning 
without clouds," and a day without a night ? 
That we dwell so much in the region of pres- 
ent clouds, and so little in the meridian of the 
future glory, entails upon us a serious loss. 
"We look too faintly beyond the midnight of 
time into the daylight of eternity. We are 
slow of heart to believe all that is revealed of 
the bliss that awaits us, and do not sufficiently 



THE DAY BREAKING. 225 

realize that, in a little while, — how soon !— 
the day will break. — the shadows will flee 
away, — and we shall bathe our souls in heav- 
en's full, unclouded, endless light. i Absent 
from the body.' we shall be ' present with the 
Lord.' To the consideration of this deeply in- 
teresting subject let us for a few moments, in 
conclusion, bend our thoughts. 

"We have already considered the night- 
season of travel as constituting a great portion 
of the celestial pilgrimage of the saints. Solo- 
mon, in the sacred Idyl from which we have 
selected the sublime stanza at the head of this 
chapter, again recalls our thoughts to this 
point. He refers to the " shadows" which 
gather round the pathway of the believer on 
his way to the eternal city. Nor is this an 
exaggerated description of the reality. The 
portrait of the Christian's life has its lights, 
bright and glorious : but it also has its shad- 
ows, deep and long ; and both the light and 
the shade are essential to the perfection of the 
picture. 

"We have emerged, beloved, in our conver- 



226 THE DAY BREAKING. 

sion, from the scene of shadows. Divine and 
sovereign grace has chosen and called us out 
of a world over which the funeral pall of the 
' darkness of the shadow of death' spreads its 
broad mantle. " Darkness covers the earth, 
and gross darkness the people." The natural 
sun illumines, — its beams of light and splen- 
dor streaming alike through the windows of 
the palace and the lowly cot; but until Jesus, 
the Sun of Righteousness, is revealed and 
known, neither i those who dwell in kings' 
houses,' nor those who occupy the humblest 
cottage on the hillside, are guided to eternity 
by a single ray from heaven. Now, seeing 
that the path of the " child of the light" 
lies through this dark world, it is no marvel if 
shadows, often varied and thick, should brood 
around his steps. Let us for a moment glance 
at some of them. 

There are the shadows of spiritual igno- 
rance thrown upon our path. With all our 
attainments, how little have we really at- 
tained ! With all our knowledge, how little do 
we actually know ! How superficially and im« 



THE DAY BREAKING. 227 

perfectly are we acquainted with truth, with 
Jesus, who is emphatically "The truth." with 
God, whom the truth reveals. "W T e know 
but in party "We see through a glass 
darkly" — all is yet but as a riddle, compared 
with what we shall know when the shadows 
of ignorance have fled. There are, too, the 
enshrouding shadows of God's dark and pain- 
ful dispensations. Our dealings are with a 
Grod of whom it is said, " Clouds and darkness 
are round about him." Who often "covers 
himself as with a cloud," and to whom the 
midnight traveller to the world of light has 
often occasion to address himself in the lan- 
guage of the church, "Thou art a G-od that 
hidest thyself." Ah ! beloved, what clouds of 
dark providences may be gathering and thick- 
ening around thy present path ! Through what 
a gloomy, stormy night of affliction faith may 
be steering thy tempest-tossed bark. That 
faith eying the promise and not the provi- 
dence — the "bright light that is in the cloud," 
and not the lowering cloud itself, will steer 
that trembling vessel safely through the surge. 



228 THE DAY BREAKING. 

i 

Remember that in the providences of Grod, the 
believer is passive — but with regard to the 
promises of G od, he is active. In the one case, 
he is to ' be still' and know that Grod reigns, 
and that the " Judge of all earth must do 
right." In the other, his faith, child-like, un- 
questioning and unwavering, is to take hold 
of what God says, and of what Grod is, be- 
lieving that what he has promised he is also 
able and willing to perform. This is to be 
" strong in faith, giving glory to Grod." 

The divine withdrawment is another shad- 
ow, often imparting an aspect of dreariness 
to the path we are treading to the Zion of 
Grod. " Wherefore hidest thou thyself?" says 
Job. " For a small moment," says Grod to 
the church, " have I forsaken thee, ... In a 
little wrath i" hid my face from thee for a 
moment." Ah ! there are many who have 
the quenchless light of life in their souls, who 
yet, like Job, are constrained to take up the 
lamentation, " I went mourning without the 
sun." There are no shadows darker to some 
of God's saints than this. Many professing 



i^E DAY BREAKING. 229 

Christians dwell so perpetually in the region 
of shadows, they so seldom feel the sunshine 
of God's presence in their souls, that they 
scarcely can discern when the light is with- 
drawn. But there are others, wont to walk 
so near with God in the rich, personal enjoy- 
ment of their pardon, acceptance and adop- 
tion, that if but a vapor floats between their 
soul and the sun, in an instant they are sen- 
sible of it. blessed are they whose walk 
is so close, so filial with God, whose home is 
so hard by the cross, who, like the Apocalyp- 
tic angel, dwell so entirely in the sun, as to 
feel the barometer of their soul affected by 
the slightest change in their spiritual atmos- 
phere. In other words — who walk so much 
beneath the light of God's reconciled coun- 
tenance as to be sensible of his hidings even 
" for a small moment." And then there comes 
the- last of our shadows, "the valley of the 
shadow of death." There they terminate. 
This may be the focus where they all shall 
meet ; but it is to meet only to be entirely and 
forever scattered. The sentiment is as true 
20 



230 THE DAY BREAKING. 

as the figure is poetic, — " the shadow of 
death." It is but a ' shadow' to the believer ; 
the body of that shadow, Jesus, the " Captain 
of our salvation," met on the cross, fought, 
and overcame. By dying he so completely 
destroyed death, and him that had the power 
of death, that the substance of death in the 
experience of the dying Christian dwindles 
into a mere shadoio, and that shadow melts 
into eternal glory. death ! how great was 
thy triumph, and how overwhelming was thy 
defeat when Jesus died. Never was thy 
gloomv domain so dark as when Essential 
Life bowed his head and gave up the ghost. 
Yet never was it illumined with .an effulgence 
so great, as when the Divine Conqueror pass- 
ed through its gloomy chambers, and with a 
power and a victory mightier and more glori- 
ous far than Samson's, tore away its iron 
gates, and demolished its strongholds ; throw- 
ing a brightness and a fragrance around the 
bed of death, in which, " until the day dawn 
and the shadows flee away," those who sleep 
in Jesus lie down and rest. " If a man 



THE DAY BREAKING. 231 

keep my sayings he shall never see death." 
" Whoso believeth in me shall never dieT 

" Death's terror is the mountain faith removes ; 
Tis faith disarms destruction, — 
Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb." 

{i ye timorous souls ! that are terrified at 
the sound of the passing bell ; that tremble 
at the sight of an opened grave ; and can 
scarce behold a coffin without a shuddering 
horror; ye that are in bondage to the grisly 
tyrant, and tremble at the shaking of his iron 
rod, cry mightily to the Father of your spirits 
for faith in his dear son ! Faith will free 
you from your slavery. Faith will embolden 
you to tread on this the fiercest of serpents. 
Old Simeon, clasping the child Jesus in the 
arms of his flesh, and the glorious Mediator 
in the arms of his faith, departs with tran- 
quillity and peace. That bitter persecutor 
Saul, having won Christ, being found in 
Christ, longs to be dismissed from cumbrous 
clay, and kindles with rapture at the prospect 
of dissolution. Methinks I see another of 
Emmanuel's followers trusting in his Saviour ; 



232 THE DAY BREAKING. 

leaning on his beloved, go down to the silent 
shade with composure and alacrity. ' Know- 
ing,' says Peter, ' that shortly I must put 
off this tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus 
Christ hath showed me.' In this powerful 
name, an innumerable company of sinful crea- 
tures have set up their banners and overcome 
through the blood of the Lamb. Authorized 
by the Captain of thy salvation, thou also 
may est set thy feet upon the neck of this 
' king of terrors.' Enriched with this anti- 
dote thou mayest play around the hole of the 
asp, and put thy undaunted hand on the 
cockatrice den. Thou mayest feel the viper 
fastening to thy mortal part, and fear no 
evil ; thou shalt one day shake it off by a 
joyful resurrection, and suffer no harm." 

But let us turn from the shadows of night 
to the day-dawn, by which those shades will 
presently be succeeded. " Until the day 
break and the shadow flee away." It will 
not always be night with the expectants of 
glory. As the " children of the day and of 
the light," their present time-state would 



THE DAY BREAKING. 233 

seem to be but an accident of their being, a 
temporary obscuration only, through which 
they are passing to the world of which it is 
said, " there shall be no night there; and they 
need no candle, neither light of the sun, for 
the Lord God giveth them light : and they 
shall reign forever and ever." xlnd yet we 
would be far from penning a sentence tending 
to foster in the Christian mind a spirit of dis- 
content with his present night-season of hu- 
miliation and sorrow. We have already re- 
marked, in a former part of this work, that 
there are glories revealed by the natural 
night, which the sun in all its splendor, so far 
from revealing, only hides from our view by 
its very brightness. We are as much in- 
debted to the darkness of night for its mag- 
nificent unveilings of God's wonderful works, 
as to the noon-tide splendor which lights up 
the wonders and glories of earth. How 
limited had been our knowledge of the uni- 
verse, and how partial our view of the divine 
affluence and greatness, had there been no 
natural night. A world of perpetual sun- 
20* 



234: THE DAY BREAKING. 



shine, would have been a world of gross men- 
tal darkness ! The earth beneath and the 
sun above us would have been the limits of 
our knowledge. The beauties spread out 
upon the dissolving landscapes around us, we 
might have surveyed with admiration and 
delight, but the mighty expanse above us, the 
overspreading firmament, the remote depths 
stretching far into space, all studded and 
crowded with suns and systems and constella- 
tions, would never have burst in grandeur 
and wonder upon our view. Of astronomy, 
that most delightful and fascinating of all 
sciences, we should have known nothing. 
But when the last lingering ray of the sun 
retires, and evening, glittering with heaven's 
rich jewellery, approaches ; and night, wearing 
her diadem of star and planet, takes her 
allotted place in the earth's revolution, — then 
it is we go forth on our wondrous travel, and 
as we " consider the heavens, the moon, and 
the stars, which he has ordained," we exclaim 
with that devout astronomer, the Psalmist^ 
" The heavens declare the glory of Grod ; and 



THE DAY BREAKING. 285 

the firmament showeth his handiwork." Thus 
is it with the dark dispensation of God with 
his people. Would you pass through a spirit- 
ual course of perpetual sunshine ? Would 
you be exempt from the night-season of sor- 
row and of trial ? how little would you 
then know of God, and of Christ, and of 
truth ! We hesitate not to affirm, that as in 
the natural world we are more deeply in- 
debted to the instructions of the night than 
to those of the day, so in the spiritual world 
we experimentally learn infinitely more in 
the night-season of deep and sanctified afflic- 
tion than in the bright, sunny day of gladness 
and prosperity. It may be a dark and tedious 
night of weeping and of trial, yet is it often a 
night in which Christ visits us, as he visits us 
at no other season. But from this digression 
let us turn our thoughts to the day-dawn, 
when the shadows shall all flee away. 

We have alluded to the moral darkness of 
man, — the spiritual unregeneracy in which 
he is found by nature. The first light, then, 
that dawns upon the soul is the day-break of 



236 THE DAY BREAKING. 

grace. When that blessed period arrives, 
when the Sun of Righteousness has risen 
upon the long-benighted mind, how do the 
shadows of ignorance and of guilt instantly 
disappear ! What a breaking away of, per- 
haps, a long night of alienation from God, of 
direct hostility to God, and of ignorance of 
the Lord Jesus, then takes place. Not, how- 
ever, strongly marked is this state always at 
the first. The beginning of grace in the soul 
is frequently analogous to the beginning of 
day in the natural world. The dawn of grace 
is at first so faint, the day-break so gentle, 
that a skilful eye only can descry its earliest 
tints. The individual himself is, perhaps, ig- 
norant of the extraordinary transition through 
which his soul is passing. The discovery of 
darkness which that day-dawn has made, the 
revelation it has brought to view of the des- 
perate depravity of his heart, the utter cor- 
ruption of his fallen nature, the number and 
the turpitude of his sins, it may be, well nigh 
overwhelms the individual with despair! But 
what has led to this discovery ? What has 



THE DAY BKEAKIXG. 237 

revealed all this darkness and sin? 0! it is 
the day-break of grace in the soul ! One faint 
ray, what a change has it produced ! 

And is it real? Ah! just as real as that 
the first beam, faintly painted on the eastern 
sky, is a real and an essential part of light. 
The day-break — -faint and glimmering though 
it be — is as really day as the meridian is day. 
And so is it with the day-dawn of grace in the 
soul. The first serious thought — the first real 
misgiving — the first conviction of sin — the 
first downfall of the eye — the first bending of 
the knee — the first tear — the first prayer — the 
first touch of faith, is as really and as essen- 
tially the day-break of God's converting grace 
in the soul as is the utmost perfection to which 
that grace can arrive. glorious dawn is 
this, my reader, if now for the first time in 
your life, the day-break of grace has come, and 
the shadows of ignorance and guilt are fleeing 
away before the advancing light of Jesus in 
your soul. If now you are seeing how de- 
praved your nature is ; if now you are learn- 
ing the utter worthlessness of your own right* 



238 THE DAY BREAKING. 



eousness; if now you are fleeing as a poor 
lost sinner to Christ, relinquishing your hold 
of -everything else, and clinging only to him; 
and though this be but in weakness and trem- 
alousness, and hesitancy, yet sing for joy, 
for the day is breaking, — the prelude to the 
day of eternal glory, — and the shadows of ua- 
regeneracy are forever fleeing away. And as 
this day of grace has begun, so it will advance. 
Nothing shall impede its course, nothing shall 
arrest its progress. " He which hath begun a 
good w r ork in you will perform it until the day 
of Jesus Christ." The Sun now risen upon 
you with healing in his beams shall never 
stand still — shall never go back. " He hath 
set a tabernacle for the sun" in the renewed 
soul of man, and onward that sun will roll in 
its glorious orbit, penetrating with its beams 
every dark recess, until all mental shadows 
are merged and lost in its unclouded and eter- 
nal splendor. " The path of the just is as the 
shining light, that shineth more and more unto 
the perfect day." 

But there awaits the believer a day brighter 



THE DAY BREAKING. 239 



far than this ; such a day as earth never saw, 
but as earth will surely see, — the day-break 
of glory. & Until the daybreak, and the 
shadows flee away." what a day is this! 
It will be " as the light of the morning, when 
the sun riseth, even a morning without 
clouds.*' Grace, which was the day-dawn of 
glory, now yields its long-held empire; and 
glory, which is the perfect day of grace, be- 
gins its brilliant and endless reign. The way- 
worn " child of the day" has emerged from 
the shadows of his pilgrimage, and has en- 
tered that world of which it is said, u there 
shall be no night there." Contemplate for a mo- 
ment, some of the attributes of this day of glory. 
It will be a day of perfect knowledge. 
"When it is said that there will be no night in 
heaven, it is equivalent^ to the assertion, that 
there will be no intellectual darkness in heav- 
en ; consequently there will be perfect intel- 
lectual light. It is said that we shall then 
' know even as also we are known.' The en- 
tire history of (rod's government will then be 
unread out before the glorified saint, luminous 



240 THE DAY BREAKING. 

in its own unveiled and yet undazziing bright- 
ness. The mysteries of providence, and the 
yet profounder mysteries of grace, which ob- 
scured much of the glory of that government, 
will then be unfolded to the wonder and ad- 
miration of the adoring mind. The miscon- 
ceptions we had formed, the mistakes we had 
made, the discrepancies we had imagined, the 
difficulties that impeded us, the prophecies 
that bewildered us, the parables that baffled 
us, the controversies that agitated us, all, all 
will now be cleared up ; the day has broken, 
and the shadows have fled forever. blessed 
day of perfected knowledge, which will then 
give me reason to see, that the way along 
which my God is now leading me through a 
world of shadows, is a right way ; and that 
where I most trembled, there I had most reason 
to stand firm ; and that where I most yielded 
to fear, there I had the greatest ground for 
confidence ; and that where my heart was the 
most collapsed with grief, there it had the 
greatest reason to awaken its strings to the 
most joyous melody. 



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